


There Will Be Darkness Again

by sleepingcreep (JayCinis)



Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: (sorry), Angst, Dark, Gen, Heavy Angst, Hurt Angus Macgyver (Macgyver 2016), Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, Whump, h/c, i didnt expect it to go so dark so consider yourself warned, idk what other tags to use, like really really dark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-27
Updated: 2019-08-31
Packaged: 2020-02-07 13:15:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 36,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18621379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JayCinis/pseuds/sleepingcreep
Summary: Sometimes Mac isn’t sure if he’s falling asleep or slipping into unconsciousness. He wakes up with wounds he doesn’t remember getting. Worse, more and more frequently he finds no evidence of injuries he does remember getting. Mac doesn’t know anymore what has actually happened to him and what is his own brain turning against him.Mac has been missing for months and the team doesn't know if they'll find him alive, or at all.





	1. Chapter 1

The river is cold and clear, the sky shadowy and uncertain. Since Mac went missing, Riley’s computer program had been scanning police reports and dispatch calls for anyone matching his description. There have been several false alarms but that doesn’t stop Jack’s stomach from tying in knots every time he’s checked a morgue or hospital room, or reported on scene to an accident.

Early morning joggers called 911, reporting a body on the riverbank just off the trail they were on. They were freaked out, unwilling to get any closer, so the only description was white man with blonde hair, they couldn’t tell if he was breathing or not.

The witnesses were easy to spot, people dressed for jogging standing nervously still. Jack arrived at the same time as the police, with ambulance sirens shrilling not far behind them. He didn’t bother stopping to talk to them, because he had to see, he had to know if it was Mac.

Heart in his throat, he picked his way down the slope to the half submerged figure. They had been there a while, lines of river debris showing high water marks on the jeans. Jack can see now that the figure is a scrawny teen about half the size of Mac. Jack nearly falls, torn between relief that this isn’t him and fear that Mac is still missing.

Poor kid. Jack slides the rest of the way down the slope. Probably went for a swim and underestimated the current. His skin is mottled and purple from the cold, please be from the cold. He hopes with everything he has that he’s still alive, not sure if he can take any more bad news right now.

Crouching down, Jack brushes the wet hair off of where it’s stuck to the kids neck to take a pulse then freezes at the face he can now see. Did he make a mistake? He rolls the kid onto his back and he was right, this kid is half the size of Mac, but it’s definitely him.

Now Jack’s frantically feeling for a pulse- this is Mac, he has to be alive. The skin is slick and cold beneath Jack’s fingers, but Mac has a pulse.

Chatter from the police radios arrive, and one of them calls down, “What have we got?”

“He needs a hospital.” Jack says, arranging Mac’s arms over his torso to keep them from getting in the way as he braces his arms under him to lift. He’s heavier than he looks until he’s free from the water. It streams off him and Jack is quickly soaked to the bone. He makes his way up the riverbank, terrified of dropping the bundle of limp Mac in his arms.

The paramedics meet him at the top, stretcher ready. He sets him down as gently as possible, but as he tries to rearrange Mac’s limbs into a more comfortable position, they are already whisking him away to the ambulance.

Jack struggles to keep pace with them, but they stop him once they arrive at the ambulance and start loading Mac in.

“Do you know him?” One of the paramedics asks.

“Yeah, he’s my…” For once, words fail him. They understand the expression on his face though, and direct him to the seat next to the stretcher.

The doors slam shut and the ambulance takes off, lights and sirens, as the paramedics efficiently alternate between taking vitals and asking Jack questions.

“What’s his name?”

“Mac. Or Angus. Angus MacGyver.” Jack says.

“Mr. MacGyver? Can you hear me?” One of the paramedics asks as they strap a blood pressure cuff to his arm.

Jack leans forward and takes Mac’s hand in both of his, trying to force some warmth into it. “Mac? Come on buddy, wake up.” It’s all he can make himself say before numbly watching them place an oxygen mask over Mac’s face, start an IV, and finally, _finally_ spread a blanket out over him.

When they arrive at the hospital, despite his best arguments, Jack is directed to a waiting area and has to watch Mac be wheeled off to who knows where. He paces, startling with a jolt as his phone rings. It’s Matty, of course.

“Jack, give me an update.”

He’d forgotten, the team is waiting for him to report back, they don’t know…

“It’s Mac.” His voice is strained. He hears background noise as Matty switches the phone to speaker. “It’s Mac. He’s… he’s alive, we’re at the hospital.” Jack hears Riley’s shaky sigh of relief. “He was in the river, and he’s not conscious. They’ve taken him back, but I, I don’t know anything else.”

“We’ll be there in fifteen.” Jack knows it’s more than a twenty minute drive, but he also knows that none of them want to wait that long. He sinks into one of the waiting room chairs, head in his hands.

 

 

It’s dark when he wakes up, and he immediately freezes, trying to quiet his shaking breathing. _If I’m still, if I don’t move…_

Mac doesn’t know how long has passed, but his muscles are shaking from the effort of holding still. He knows he’s being toyed with. He can’t tell if his mind is playing tricks on him in the dark or if he really does hear someone else's breathing. The waiting in the pitch black is the worst, he almost wishes they would get it over with already.

A door opens, and he barely makes out a figure moving toward him. Only his eyes move, hoping they leave, following their movement as they grow closer.

The nurse gently places a hand on the patient's forehead, about to lift his eyelid to check his pupil reaction. She left the lights off to let the surly man in the corner rest, because for once he isn’t pacing. She flashes her pen light on, only to drop it, because _the patient's eyes are already open._

A flash of light blinds Mac, and he can’t hold back his startled gasp, despite his jaw being clenched shut. He hears movement to his right and a clatter to his left, all his instincts are screaming to run, try to escape. But it didn’t go well last time. Panic is whirling the person’s voice around his head, and he can’t make sense of it. They grab his wrist, and he knows it’s too late to hold still.

He tears his arm away and tries to struggle away from the hands. He flails right into a pair of bigger, rougher hands and lurches back the other direction, but it’s too late. The hands have him by both wrists now. A voice says “ _Lights!_ Get the lights!”

He winces, trying to throw up his arms to protect his eyes from the blinding light, but his arms are being forced down against his chest, pressing him back down.

 

 

Jack is woken by a clatter and leaps to his feet, before hearing one of the nurses say “Agent MacGyver, you startled me. How long have you been awake?” There’s no reply. From Mac’s bedside he hears the nurse hesitantly say, “I’m just going to take your pulse, okay?”

Almost before she finishes her sentence Jack hears thrashing. It’s too dark to see Mac, but Jack reaches for him, afraid the kid was having a seizure or something. He _needs_ to see what’s going on.

“ _Lights!_ Get the lights!” Jack yells at the nurse, having managed to find Mac’s flailing arms in the dark.

He almost regrets asking for the lights to be turned on. The past couple of days they have been kept low. The nurses claimed it was to help Mac sleep and heal, but Jack suspected they were trying to get him to sleep as well. He hasn’t really been able to while he was so worried about Mac.

The stark hospital lights reveal he was right to worry, and then some. Mac is still struggling, but there isn’t much of him left to fight. His blankets are now kicked off, slumping to the floor.

Jack crosses Mac’s arms and gently holds them to Mac’s heaving chest, trying to help him calm down. It’s too easy, despite Mac obviously fighting with everything he has. For the first time Jack can really take in Mac’s condition.

He’s looking wildly around the room, avoiding looking at Jack at all. His stomach turns at the fear in them. Beneath his own hands he can feel every bone and tendon of Macs hands, and can see his wrists and elbows jutting out painfully. His ribs are clearly visible across his still heaving chest. Bruises and healing scars mark where is wrists were shackled in some way, a deep purple against his skin that still doesn’t feel like it’s warmed up.

Mac seems to have exhausted himself because he lies mostly still now, the only movement his slight shivering.

The nurse still stands by the light switch for fear of setting him off again. Very quietly, she slips out the door, most likely notifying a doctor of Mac’s condition.

“Mac, hey, it’s me, Jack.” He keeps one hand over Mac’s and reaches the other to brush his hair out of his eyes. As he does so, Mac jerks, trying to writhe out of reach. Instinctively Jack holds the kid tighter, trying to keep him still. He regrets it when Mac wheezes slightly, lightening his grip, terrified he’s somehow injured him.

“Hey, hey, okay” Jack says, trying to calm him down. “Okay, we’ll just sit tight for the doctor. I’m not going to hurt you.”

Mac’s face is turned as far away from Jack as he can, staring at the wall, but he’s not fighting him. He’s shivering harder now and Jack swears he can almost hear his bones rattling together. _I wasn’t built for being gentle._ Jack thinks. _I was built for bashing in the skulls of whoever did this to him._

Moving as slowly as he can, trying to hold Mac still with one hand, he draws the blankets back up over him. He can tell Mac is hyper-aware of everything Jack is doing, but frozen, waiting for whatever Jack does to him. However, once he’s under the blankets again he closes his eyes for a moment, briefly letting himself acknowledge the comfort.

The moment of peace is interrupted by the doctor entering and Mac lurches again. Jack is too afraid of hurting Mac again that he manages to free one of his hands and he scrabbles, trying to break Jack’s grip on him. When that doesn’t work, he latches onto the railing of the bed trying to use it to pull himself away. Somehow in the whole mess, the IV tubing got caught on Jack’s watch and the back of Mac’s hand is bleeding.

The doctor briskly crosses the room and grabs Mac’s arm, securing a padded restraint around it, well above the marks remaining from less kind restraints. As he is attaching it to the bed, Mac desperately tries to curl his arm to his chest, out of reach of the doctor.

“Doc, do you have to?” Jack says softly, reaching out to grab the doctors arm, but he knows the answer.

“He’s a flight risk, and we can’t have him pulling out his IV. It’s for his own good.” Jack lets go as the doctor secures Macs other arm and checks the IV. Apparently it’s no good.

“Agent Macgyver? I’ve got to replace your IV, okay?” The doctor says. Mac doesn’t seem to hear. As soon as the doctor touches it Mac scrunches his eyes closed and tries to twist his hand out of reach despite the restraints.

“I’ll have to put it in his arm instead so he won’t be able to pull it out.” There is a shaky inhale of breath at the needle prick, but otherwise Mac doesn’t react. Jack places a hand on Mac’s arm to comfort himself as much as Mac as the doctor answers his unasked questions.

“It’s not an entirely surprising reaction, considering we don’t know exactly what happened to Agent Macgyver. He’s currently in what we call a Dissociative state. It’s a common reaction to trauma. It may take some time for him to adjust to his surroundings.”

“Then the cuffs can come off?” Jack asks, voice strained.

“Most likely. The restraints are only if he is a risk to himself or others.”

He feels sick at the implication that when Mac comes out of it, he might still be a risk to himself.

“You should both get some rest.” The doctor says, flicking the lights off as he leaves.

Mac’s muscles immediately coil tight, trembling at the strain.

“Wait, leave the lights on.” Jack calls after him. Puzzled, the doctor does so, waiting a moment for Jack to speak. When he doesn’t, he leaves, closing the door behind him.

Mac relaxes and once again briefly closes his eyes and relief on the kids face catches Jack right in his heart.

“Alright Mac, we’ll keep the lights on.” He sighs.

Mac still hasn’t moved, but he's so worn out that he doesn’t even have the fight left in him to keep his eyes open.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A shorter chapter, but the next one will likely be longer and so, so much worse (better)

The first night after Mac woke up Jack didn’t sleep much. When he closed his eyes he saw him thrashing and fighting him, all pale and wide eyed. Or worse, half dead on the riverbank. The present wasn’t much better, but at least he is here. He was learning to tell when Mac woke up. His breath would hitch and he would jerk against the wrist cuffs, just once, as if testing to see if he was still restrained before he would go still again. 

The doctors were concerned about Mac’s nutrition, or lack thereof, and Jack was too. He still shudders at the memory of how he couldn’t even recognize Mac when he first found him, how easy he was to lift even in the waterlogged clothes. 

They’ve raised the back of the bed and set food in front of him, which he resolutely ignored, and the doctors told Jack that if Mac didn’t start getting some food in him by the end of the day, they were going to have to give him an NG tube. 

“Even if he does start eating, we might have to anyway.” The doctor had pulled Jack into the hall. “He’s severely malnourished and it will be hard for him to make up for it on his own.”

Not only did the whole idea of the nose tube gross Jack out, but the idea of taking any of Mac’s independence after all this didn’t feel right. 

He put on a cheerful smile as he settled himself back in the chair at Mac’s bedside. He could tell Mac was acutely aware of his every action even though he didn’t look at him. “Hey man, I think hospital food gets a bad rap. No way is it as bad as everyone claims.” Jack knows exactly what hospital food tastes like because this is not his first time in the hospital, except usually he’s the one in the bed. 

“I mean, if you’re not gonna eat it…” Anything to try to get a reaction out of Mac. He swipes the cup of jello off the tray and takes a bite, comically wincing. “Alright I give it a… six, maybe seven. But that’s practically a nine by hospital standards!” Mac doesn’t move and Jack half tosses it back onto the tray, slumping back into the chair. 

After a moment's pause, Mac reaches for the jello and Jack holds his breath watching, not wanting to move and startle him like a stray cat. With some difficulty around the restraints, Mac starts eating. 

_He’s afraid of being poisoned._ Jacks stomach drops, but he slowly reaches over and takes the orange juice off the tray and takes a sip. Before he even pulls his hand back after setting it down, Mac downs the whole thing. 

“I’ll be right back, okay kid? We’ll get you something more to eat.” Jack nods at the two men standing outside Mac’s door and drums his fingers anxiously on the nurses station. Since they have no idea who took Mac, he is kept under guard with few people being allowed to see him. 

“Can I help you?” The nurse asks. 

“Yeah. Can you page the doctor? Damn kid’s afraid of being poisoned, but he’s eating.”

 

Half an hour later, Jack is in the hall updating the team and keeping an eye on Mac through the window on the hospital rooms door. The kid’s color is already better, skin less of the patchy cold purple and sickly pale. His scars show up more vividly and Jack has a hard time looking at Mac. 

“How’s our boy doing?” Matty asks in place of a greeting. 

Jack slowly paces and rubs the back of his head exhaustedly. “He’s eating now- the doctors were threatening to tube feed him. Turns out he’s afraid of being poisoned and wouldn’t eat anything unless I tried it first. He’s looking a little better now.”

“Didn’t you read his medical file?” Her voice is soft. Any information that might be helpful in finding Mac’s captors had been forwarded to the rest of the team, but Jack couldn’t bring himself to read it. Matty takes his silence as her answer. “He tested positive for several different drugs over an extended period of time. Track marks are one of the few things he doesn’t have, so…” 

Jack pulls the phone away from his ear, not wanting to hear any more. 

_He’s not afraid of being poisoned- he’s afraid of being drugged._

A faint “Jack? Jack!” can still be heard from the phone and he holds it back to his ear. 

“Enough, enough. I don’t want to hear this.” He tries to forget Mattie’s words- _Track marks are one of the few things he doesn’t have._

“What do we have so far?” Jack directs the conversation in a less painful direction.  
Riley pipes up in the background. “We’re guessing the river was a forensic countermeasure, so we’re looking for anything upstream that could give us any clues but it’s not much to go on. Our best bet is whatever Mac remembers once he can tell us.” She says it so casually, but Jack can tell she’s making an effort to sound like that. 

“Dalton, don’t worry about what’s going on here. Your job right now is to keep an eye on Mac and let us know when anything changes.” Mattie’s tone is crisp again, and it makes things feel just a little more normal.

As he is putting his phone back in his pocket, he finds something already there. 

Mac’s swiss army knife- it had been the first sign that something was wrong. 

 

-FOUR MONTHS EARLIER-

 

It’s dark when he wakes up, and he lays still trying to pinpoint what woke him. There is a noise, out of place, just on the edge of his hearing. Mac slides out of bed and tries to walk softly enough that he doesn’t cover the noise, following it to his source. 

He makes his way downstairs and he can hear it clearer now, and it sounds like an animal. Every hair is standing on end, and his gut is desperately trying to convince him that it’s just a cat, but he creeps closer to the front door where the noise is coming from.

All at once his brain understands what he’s hearing: It’s a baby, crying. 

“What the hell?” Mac looks through the window and immediately opens the door when he sees the baby car seat, incomplete thoughts sparking through his mind:

_Poor kid- who left you here?- why on my front step?- how long- what am I- should I call-_

Crouching beside it, he lifts the blanket, but something feels wrong… _of course something feels wrong, there is a child abandoned on my front porch in the middle of the night._

Mac’s only just lifted the blanket enough to see that the only thing beneath it is a phone when something smashes into the side of his head, exploding stars across his vision before everything goes dark.

 

“Mac!” Jack shouts, letting himself in through Mac’s front door. The sun’s high enough now that it’s baked the doorknob to the point of being almost too hot to touch. He wanders into the kitchen and grabs a box of cereal, shrugging to himself. _As long as I’m here…_

“You’d better be really sick, because Mattie is _pissed_ that you didn’t show up and that you haven’t answered any of her calls.” Jack continues around a mouthful of cereal. “Like, minutes away from being a zombie sick. You should have seen her.” He makes his way to Mac’s room after checking the back porch. 

Jack cracks open the bedroom door. “Or like, ankle deep in quicksand upside down.” The bed is empty. He opens the door the rest of the way and looks for a place to set the cereal down so he can draw his gun. He suddenly has a bad feeling. As Jack goes to set it down on the nightstand, he sees Mac’s swiss army knife and his stomach drops. 

On some long forgotten mission, Jack had given Mac a hard time about keeping the knife on the hotel’s bedside table at night. 

Mac explained “Lots of people keep their most important tools on their nightstand. Their phone, their medications, their glasses. Mine just so happens to be a knife.”

 _Mac would never leave the house without it._ Jack pulled out his phone and called the Phoenix.

_Mac would never leave without it, so he must have been taken._

 

Jack prayed he had overreacted as he turned Mac’s knife over in his hands, but an hour later everyone Mac knew had been called, agents had swept the whole house, and hospitals and morgues had been checked for anyone matching Mac’s description, and Jacks fears were confirmed. 

Mac was missing.


	3. Chapter 3

Light streamed in, burning through Mac’s still closed eyes. He rolls over, groaning. _How much have I overslept for the sun to be coming through the window like that?_ He had never needed an alarm clock, rarely sleeping past seven and never oversleeping when he had something important like work the next day. 

Everything felt off though. It was taking him an infuriatingly long time to wake up completely, or even open his eyes. The more he woke up, the more things felt wrong. His head ached and felt like it was packed with cotton, and despite the bright light, everything was _cold._

He finally peeled his eyes open and pushed himself upright, hissing at the newly aggravated throbbing in his head. The side of his head felt stiff and when he touched it his hand came back slightly red. 

Mac’s vision swam as he squinted past the bright lights to try to make sense of his surroundings. 

The room was unfamiliar and trying to remember how he got here made his head ache more, so he instead concentrated on familiarizing himself with the room. Six feet by maybe eight feet of slickly polished concrete, a solid metal door sunk into one wall. The room was empty, except for buzzing fluorescent lights covering the ceiling in crowded rows. Wires traced the upper corners from the lights to a small hole above the door. 

There was nothing else to be used for escape, and though Mac didn’t yet have a plan, he still wanted to gather what supplies he had. If nothing else, he didn’t want to be empty handed when his captors returned…

The floor felt ice cold underneath Mac’s bare feet as he reached for the bundle of wires, hoping to use them to pull down one of the blinding lights. He could use the metal fixture to wedge the door open maybe, or use the fluorescent tube to swing at the captor. He was afraid of the light breaking as it fell, littering the floor with broken glass and trapping him where he stood barefoot. 

Mac had just managed to get a grip on one of the wires when the lights died so suddenly that the darkness seemed to collapse on him like a weight. 

_I haven’t even done anything yet._

He was relieved, the ache in his head dulling. It cleared his head enough that he realized there must have been a camera watching him. He pulled the wires harder, wanting something in his hands now that his captor was certainly coming for him.

He felt the door shift where he was leaning on it, and it began to slide open far quieter than a door that big had any right to. 

Mac backed away, raising his fists in front of him, eyes half tricking him that he could see them in the dark. There was a faint shuffle behind him, but before he had turned completely his arm was twisted behind his back and a kick to the back of his knee buckled his legs out from under him, straining the arm behind his back further. 

“Your reputation precedes you, Mr. MacGyver.” A low voice spoke softly, the person's breath raising goosebumps on the back of his neck. It was almost deafening in the quiet of the room. “Those hands and brain of yours have gotten you into all sorts of trouble, and out of all sorts of trouble. Did no one ever tell you to keep them off other people’s things?”

“Who are you?” Mac snaps, hoping the sharpness would hide the fear in his voice. It was terrifying feeling so helpless, no backup, no swiss army knife.

His arm behind him jerks higher and he grits his teeth.

“I ask the questions,” the voice hisses angrily at him. “And here is your first one: Hands, or something else?”

“What?”

“ _Hands_ ,” the voice grits out, uncurling a finger from Mac’s fist and forcing it sideways, not quite to the point of snapping. “Or something else?” They ask again, ignoring Mac’s gasps of pain.

_I need my hands to get out of here, and I need them to have any sort of life on the other side of this. What good am I without them?_

“Something else! Something else.” Mac pants, curling his finger back into a fist as soon as it’s free. 

“I thought so.” A light flashes briefly, but before Mac can blink away the blue spots in his vision, a sting of pain on his shoulder blossoms into a searing agony. He jerks away from the pain, the scent of his singed shirt mingling with the heady cigar smoke. The hands hold him tight and Mac holds his breath, not willing to cry out.

He is let go and and sinks from his knees to the cold floor without their support. He barely hears footsteps retreating over the sound of his own shaky breaths echoing in the dark room. 

Mac feels his way to the wall and gently leans his shoulder against the cool cement, trying to ease the burning.

 _Better this than my hands._ Mac thinks just as the lights turn back on, shooting new pain into his skull.

 

Hours (?) later the cold concrete feels refreshing on his burn, but the rest of him is cold almost to the point of shivering. He had given himself to the count of thirty to recuperate and get his breathing under control before inspecting his shoulder. He peeled his shirt away from where it was burnt into his skin, and that was enough to leave him grimacing, clenching and unclenching his fists for a few minutes before he could make himself look at it. 

Angry red swelling circles the charred black and white flesh. Mac distances himself from the pain, thinking clinically. _Third degree burn. Doesn’t really matter though- all I can do about it is try to keep it clean and cool._

There’s nothing to do, and Mac has no idea how long he’s been missing, or how long he’s been awake. He’s counted the thirty-two lights four times, but can’t see a camera anywhere. Now, he paces slow circles around the cell, alternating swinging his arms and wrapping them around himself to fight off the cold, working up the courage to inspect the door. 

_They can’t be watching me all the time_ , he reasons. Still, the thought of touching anything makes his burn throb menacingly. 

Mac can’t take it anymore- he presses an eye to the crack in the door, but he can’t see anything. It’s featureless on this side except for a small hatch, and he can hardly make it rattle. 

_Think. What kind of latch would a door like this have?_

He doesn’t have a chance to answer his own question before the lights shut off and he staggers away from the door. _Maybe I can rush him, knock him out of the way and get around him and escape._

Mac feels a breeze from the door opening lift his hair and hears the faint sound of the door sliding open. 

He wishes he had oriented himself better while the lights were on, but it’s now or never. He charges the door, or at least where he remembers it being and is rewarded with a grunt as his shoulder collides with someone. His hands find the door frame and he uses it to propel himself forward and out of the room. Mac’s heart leaps. _I made it, I’m out. I just have to-_ A hand snakes around his ankle and he’s on the ground. He tries to kick it off, but he’s being dragged back into the room- the cell. 

“Wait, wait I’m sorry.” Mac says, even as he’s still fighting to break his hold. 

“Shh shh shh.” The man says dropping Mac’s ankle. He struggles to push himself upright but a knee at his pack presses him back to the floor.

“I’m sorry-” before Mac can finish the man wrenches his head back with a fistful of Mac’s hair.

“I said ‘shh’.” The knee digs harder into his back and it gets a little harder to breathe. “Now, hands, or something else?”

“Something else” Mac gasps out, and he’s released. _Another burn isn’t too bad._ He braces himself for it.

The only warning he gets is the faint sound of something dragging across the floor, before then the blow slams into his ribs. As he curls around the pain, another strikes his back, then worst of all, his burnt shoulder. He brings his arms up to shield his head as a few more half-hearted blows hit him before the footsteps retreat. Mac is still trying to catch his breath when the lights snap back on. 

 

Mac can’t make himself move. He can hardly make himself breathe around the pain in his ribs. So he just lies there, eyes focused on a patch of floor in front of him, taking inventory of himself. 

_How did I get here?_ He wonders, in more way than one. _Woke up with a head wound, so I must have been knocked out and taken from wherever I was…_ He doesn’t think he was taken while on a mission, he would have remembered that, or someone would be torturing him for information, which is clearly not what this guy wants. 

_So, head wound, burnt and bruised shoulder_ He takes a deep breath and winces. _And bruised but probably not broken ribs. Someone knows me well enough to not like me, and to have locked me in this room, wherever it is. And I’m cold._ He adds miserably. 

He wants nothing more than to sleep, let his mind rest and recover, but he’s still jumping at every sound he thinks he hears, and the lights are bright enough that he can’t sleep. _I’ll be fine, I’ll be fine_ , he repeats to himself. _The team probably has more information than I do, and they’re piecing it together._

Mac bites back the other thoughts. _What if no one has noticed I’m missing yet? I have no idea how long it’s been. Not much more than a day? What if a more pressing case has come up? They can’t waste all of their resources on one missing agent. I might be on my own in this._

The thought is enough to push Mac back to his feet to search the cell for anything he might have missed, shaking himself every time the dark thoughts creep back in his head. 

Defeated, he sits down, gingerly trying to lean an uninjured part of himself against the wall. He must have worn a groove into the concrete by now, and no solutions have leapt out at him. 

A grinding shriek sends him staggering to his feet again- the hatch at the bottom of the door opens in loud contrast to the silence of the door. A tray is slid in, then the hatch is slid shut. Mac smiles, more excited at the promise of something to use as a tool than the food. Still, he eats the sandwich and drinks the soup and water, not tasting any of it, and contemplates what he can do with a tray, bowl, cup, and spoon. 

The hatch shrieks open again, and the mans voice says “I won’t ask twice.” 

Mac quickly slides the tray and dishes out, but pockets the spoon. _Maybe he won’t notice. I might be able to wedge this in the door and disengage the latch, depending on what kind it is. Or wedge it in the door to keep it from closing all the way…_ And he thinks he’s gotten away with it, but the lights shut off. 

He swallows the shake in his voice. “What do you want from me?”

“What I want…” The man draws it out, “Is for you to be conscious. Which is why instead of me smashing your head into one of these walls, you are going to hand over that spoon.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. What do you really want from me?” Mac desperately clings to whatever control he can keep in this place.

“I want,” the voice is right in Macs ear now. “That spoon.” 

The man puts a hand on Mac’s shoulder and digs his thumb into the burn. As Mac winces away from it, he reaches into Mac’s pocked and slowly, purposefully, retrieves the spoon. The phrase _something else_ echoes around Mac’s brain, and he shivers. 

“And I want you to be quiet, and keep your hands to yourself.”

 _You first._ Mac thinks, but the retort isn't worth it.

“Now,” the man sounds almost friendly. 

 

“Hands, or something else?”


	4. Chapter 4

Mac’s pounding heart wakes him sometimes. He can ignore it most of the time as he paces, though sometimes it makes itself known by throbbing in his head or ribs or shoulder. It feels wrong, too exposed to just lay down on the concrete floor and sleep. Too vulnerable by far. There isn’t a position he can lay in anyway, that keeps the floor from digging into his bruises. Even if he could, it’s still too bright. Even if it was dark, it’s still too cold. 

When sleep does find him, it’s while he’s propped in a corner, curled up to conserve body heat after he’s too tired to pace anymore. He doesn’t know how long his eyes were closed, but he’s shaken awake. Jolting, Mac expects it to be dark, expects more games. His eyes rake the shadowless room for a long while before he realizes that the shaking never stopped. It’s only his heart, afraid of letting him be asleep and unguarded in this place. 

He splays a hand across his chest, trying to quiet his heart as one would a frightened bird. No chance of him getting back to sleep now. 

Once again, he drags himself to his feet, counting, working formulas in his head, anything to keep his brain working. He’s been fed three more times, but he can feel his brain starving for want of protein. The meals aren’t even regular enough to use them to keep time. 

_What do I have?_ Mac isn’t even looking for something to give him a way out anymore, just… _something._

_The only thing I have is bruises_ , Mac thinks wryly. 

_Bruises..._ He has to bite his lip to keep from saying it out loud, and to hide his smile. This was one thing Mac could have of his own. He lifts his shirt, wincing, to inspect his ribs. The bruise has sunk into a deep purple color, but he can see the barest hint of it fading at the edges. 

He recites to himself, as though explaining to a member of the team. _Bruises tend to stay a reddish color for the first day, then turn purple. After about seven days it goes green, then an ugly yellow-brown._ He’s had enough bruises to consider it a scientifically tested average. With an admittedly small test group. 

Bouncing on his heels a few times, Mac _revels_ in this small bit of time-keeping he has. He staggers a bit, losing his balance from his small joyful outburst.

As a last ditch effort to get anything close to sleep, he has given up on staying at all upright. Half on his side with his back to the wall, Mac closes his eyes and tries to shut out the cold that is creeping from the concrete through his body. 

Even though his eyes are closed, he still sees everything go black. 

_I’ve done nothing wrong_ Mac thinks, holding his breath. _Maybe he just turned the lights off. Is going to let me sleep._ The door rolls open in it’s eery near-silent way, and if Mac wasn’t shivering before he is now. _I haven’t done anything wrong, he’s probably just looking in or something_ , he thinks, even as footsteps lazily walk toward him. _Maybe if I don’t antagonize him…_

A long, dark moment passes and Mac thinks he’s okay, he’s okay. But rough hands grab his shoulders, jerking him up so he’s sitting against the wall- “Something else something else something else,” Mac says as he’s strongarmed to his feet, biting back a grunt of pain that he’s afraid would come out as a squeak. 

_I don’t want to hurt anymore._ The thought strikes him as almost a realization, not a desire. 

Spurred to action, Mac pushes as hard as he can, hearing his captor fall and almost falling after him. His falling steps push him forward into a run, out the door and into the hallway outside. He drags the back of a hand against the wall as he runs, trying to feel his way. But he’s winded already, lungs burning, feeling almost sick, sweating though he hasn’t been warm in a long time. His bare feet don’t make a sound, but he can still hear his footsteps echoed behind him. He nearly falls again, but catches himself in time to trip over something strung across the hallway. 

Instinct is screaming at him to get up as Mac gasps for breath on the floor. 

“You like that?” The dark above him says. “I installed that after your last little frolick.” The man mostly carries him back to his cell, Mac only able to stay on his feet or move, not both. 

“I hadn’t done anything wrong,” Mac pants as he’s shoved into the cell. 

“Did I say you had?”

Mac tries to make sense of this, but the point was that there was no sense to it. 

“Now, do I even have to ask?” 

Mac swallows, mouth dry and throat burning, and shakes his head before realizing he can’t be seen. “Something else.”

And the steps retreat, door closing behind them. 

 

He feels the sound in his teeth first, a warbling alarm loud enough he fears going deaf. It presses in on him in the dark, and for the first time Mac asks himself, _are my hands worth this?_

At some point he thinks he hears the sound of the hatch buried beneath the rest, but he’s paralyzed, clutching his ears to keep his brain inside his head, unable to investigate. 

His ears ring so loud he doesn’t even notice the sound has shut off until the lights go on. When Mac can move again, his first instinct is to check his bruises for green. It feels like the sound went on for weeks. They don’t look any different.

He manages to uncurl himself and make his way to the food, and more importantly, water left just inside the door. His throat is still dry from running, and he knows he needs the calories to keep warm. He’s spending more and more time shivering, and Mac finds it unnerving to watch his hands shake. 

After eating, the hatch doesn’t open again so Mac sits and watches the goosebumps smooth from his skin, feels the warmth return to his limbs. 

Mac ignores the fact that though he’s not shivering, his hands still shake a little. 

 

He actually feels warm enough to sleep, he finds, as his eyes drift closed. Mac blinks his eyes open again- this doesn’t feel like falling asleep. It feels like being dragged into unconsciousness.

Lurching to his feet, he backs into a corner, hoping that staying upright will be enough to keep him awake. 

_No, I can’t fall asleep now. What if he moves me somewhere else, somewhere even harder to find than here? And if not… what is he going to do to me?_

Mac leans heavier and heavier against the wall, but soon that becomes too much, and he slides down, promising himself that he would at least stay sitting upright. He doesn’t even notice as he falls the rest of the way to the floor, already too far gone. 

 

Mac becomes _aware_ before he becomes _conscious._

_The window’s just open,_ he tells himself, feeling the cold settled in his bones. _Sun’s shining in bright, and it’s letting the cold in._

In the time it took to drag these thoughts together, he can open his eyes and prove himself wrong. He closes his eyes again, steeling himself to face reality once more. 

He reaches to pull up his shirt and check his bruises. _It has to have been at least seven days, right?_ He freezes at a soft clinking sound and when he moves again, his arms feel heavy. 

_No, please please please._ But no amount of pleading changes the chains encircling his wrists. While Mac was unconscious, heavy chains had been bolted to the wall and secured around his wrists. Now he frantically checks the bruise, but it hasn’t changed. Mac pulls at the chains, testing for weakness. The only weakness he finds in himself- his arms are tired after a couple tugs. 

Mac buries his head in his hands, wanting to yell, and fight, and possibly do something stupid like punch a wall, but he’s _tired_. 

He works his fingers through his hair but pauses at his head wound. His stomach churns. There is no more blood around it, gluing his hair to his skin. Instead, he feels three neat stitches, holding it together. He almost tears off his shirt sleeve to reveal the burn on his shoulder has also been treated and bandaged. Mac wants to rip the stitches out and the bandages off, out of spite.

He doesn’t though. An ever smaller part of him tells him to leave it be and keep his strength.


	5. Chapter 5

Since he woke up chained to the wall, the lights haven’t gone out again. Mac almost wishes they finally would, the anticipation keeping him on edge, nerves fraying. He needs something immediate to focus on, instead of the agonizing company of his own thoughts and the _waiting_. 

He knows something is coming. Three trays of food have been shoved under the door, and eventually jerked angrily back out, untouched except for the few sips of water he had risked. Mac can’t stomach the thought of being drugged again, losing time and not knowing what has happened since last time he was conscious. But his captor isn’t likely to put up with this for much longer, and to be honest, Mac isn’t sure if he could hold out anymore. 

He no longer has the energy to pace, and it doesn’t keep him warm anymore anyway. Last time he stood up he blacked out, at first thinking the lights had been shut off until he found himself having to lean heavily against the wall and take deep breaths to keep from passing out entirely. 

Mac knew that either the lights would be shut off soon, and the captor would punish him for not eating, or that he would eat the next tray of food that came under the door. 

He waited, slumped next to the door, to see which it would be, inspecting the chains for any way to get out of them. He tried for a long time to work them over his hands, millimeter by millimeter, but only succeeded in rubbing his wrists raw. They were fastened so they were smaller than the circumference of his hands by heavy padlocks. 

Mac found himself somewhat distressed by how visible his wrist bones were, and how his thumb seemed to jut out from his hand. He could no longer ignore the way his hands refused to hold steady and the bluish tint to his fingernails. 

The more he looked at his hands, the more Mac considered dislocating his thumb and crushing his hands out of the chains, making another run for it. He sighed at himself and tilted his head back to rest it against the wall. 

_What’s the point of holding out for my hands if I just ruin them myself?_

He knows he could probably tear apart the light fixtures and find something to pick the padlocks with, but there was no way he could do it in time to be free when the man came to put a stop to it. 

Escape was no longer an option. Mac had to accept that all he could do now was anything to make his time here more tolerable and survive until someone came for him. If someone came for him. 

His thoughts were interrupted by the screech of the hatch and the clatter of the tray being shoved in. Steeling himself, he slowly ate the meal, waiting for something to taste off or to feel the effects of any drugs. As he waited, the only thing he felt was a hint of warmth and a slightly clearer head. He could make it a little longer, give the team more time to find him.

Not long after the tray was removed, the warmth seeped away to be replaced with a deep cold that wracked his body with shivers. Chains rattling, he wrapped his arms around himself and hunted for the logic behind this new cold, listing any nutritional knowledge he had picked up. 

_Calories equal warmth, right? How am I colder after eating? Fat has nine calories per gram, protein and carbs four, alcohol seven. Caloric need differs depending on lifestyle, body type, health… though on average a person needs to consume at least 2,000 calories to meet basal metabolic needs…_

Of course. Digestion in and of itself requires energy, energy Mac doesn’t have. It’s now robbing the rest of his body for scraps, leaving nothing to keep him warm. 

_How can my condition have deteriorated so much already? It hasn’t even been seven days._

Mac had checked his bruises after he woke up, seeing no change in coloration. Something feels wrong, a thought just out of reach in the back of his mind. Frustrated, his hands shaking so hard he can barely lift his own shirt, he once again checks the bruise. The back of his hand brushes his abdomen, shockingly cold, and his stomach drops. 

Mac is cold and starving, circulation slowed to a crawl as evidenced by the cold hands. Cold, poor nutrition, and poor circulation means that not only would he bruise more easily, but that the bruises could take much, much longer to heal. 

He angrily jerks against his chains a couple times, but that’s the most dramatic breakdown he can manage in his current state. His body has started to feed off his muscles without anything else to sustain it. Mac has to roll the dice on whether the food will help him keep his strength up, or end up with him further injured and weakened. If he had been anywhere else, a bit healthier, he would have thrown something, kicked something, even just screamed himself hoarse. 

Who knows how many days or weeks or... _months_ it’s been? Mac had been desperately waiting for the telltale green that would signify seven days had passed, just to have some indication of how long this had been going on for, how long he’d been missing for. He can guess now that it’s probably been more than seven days, and he knows he shouldn’t have relied so heavily on the accuracy of the timekeeping of a _bruise_. 

He knows the statistics about the amount of time that passes and the likelihood that an abducted person is found alive, he’s just never been on this side of the equation before, not alone. Maybe he’d just been fooling himself, letting himself be convinced that less time had passed, that he had a chance of being found alive. 

If Mac had been the kind of person to swear, he would have. 

Each breath that passed he could feel the chances of being rescued slip farther and farther out of reach, and his mind searched down desperate paths, despite how sick they made him feel. 

_I could tear down a light fixture, and when he comes for me, club him with it. I could break one of the light bulbs and stab him in the neck. When he comes for me, I could wrap these chains around his neck. I’ll have all the time in the world to break myself out, once he’s no longer a threat._

Mac is horrified that he’s even capable of thinking of such things. He’s afraid that even if his life depended on it, he wouldn’t be able to carry out any of those ideas.

Deep down, Mac is even more afraid that he would. 

 

Most of Mac’s time is now spent half dozing on the floor against the wall. He doesn’t have the energy to do much else, and even staying alert and awake becomes too challenging after a while. 

This seems to bore his captor, because everything seems to happen more often now. Mac has accepted three out of the eight meals he’s been offered with no side effects. Intermittently, he has asked for beatings and burns and deafening sounds and anything, _anything_ else to protect his hands. Mac suspects that soon it wouldn’t be enough and his hands will no longer be safe. 

He idly wonders if the cigar burns speckling his back and shoulders are in any sort of pattern. They feel like they’re still on fire and that when the lights are off they glow like some twisted kind of constellation. 

He knows they aren’t healing properly. Only the first one on his shoulder has any sort of bandage on it. Given his weakened state, he suspects some of them are probably infected. Burns are tricky injuries even with the right medical care on an otherwise healthy individual. 

The room goes black, and Mac just closes his eyes. 

_Maybe if I just stay still, if I’m no longer entertaining, he won’t want to bother with me anymore and it will be over._

There’s a chance that this man will dump him somewhere alive, given that Mac hasn’t seen his face, but after experiencing his brutality, Mac doesn’t think it’s his style.

He relishes the fresh air on his face as the door opens, any change a welcome relief. This time, when the man asks “hands or something else”, a long silence stretches out in the darkness. Mac is so tired of _choosing_ to be hurt.

A boot nudges his sore ribs and Mac tries to say “Something else,” but what croaks out is “How long have I been here?” and Mac knows he’s going to be punished for it.

The voice chuckles. “Who knows? Maybe you’ve always been here. You’re going to be here from now on, so it doesn’t really matter.”

He feels the man grab his left arm and he’s sure that his question has cost him his hands, but instead a brief cigar glow leaves a burn almost exactly where a watch face would sit. Mac hardly even flinches, just clenches his fist until the pain fades. Surprisingly, this is enough to have satisfied his captor for now and he’s once again left alone. 

 

This newest burn is hell, Mac discovers. Every time the chains shift at all, it’s rubbed or pinched or gouged. Still, he should have known he got off easy with only the one burn, that it was too good to be true. Since the last three meals he’s eaten have been safe, he let down his guard, eating the next one with hardly a second thought. He curls up in the corner and waits for the cold to set in again, but it doesn’t. Mind numbing fatigue has become so normal to Mac that he barely even realizes he’s been drugged before he’s unconscious.

 

The pain in his back wakes Mac first, and he can feel each burn pressed against the cold metal. He furrows his brow, still not quite awake. _This is new…_

He thinks he sees the faint glow of a computer screen across a room much larger than the cell he’s come to know. He’s been moved. 

“Angus…” The man’s voice lazily draws out the word. Mac almost startles at hearing his own name- he hasn’t heard it in a long time. “Cows known for _meat_.” 

Mac begins to struggle, pulling against the cuffs holding his arms and legs to some kind of metal table. He’s suddenly more aware of his missing shirt. There are really only two reasons he can think of for a person to call another person ‘meat’ and and the thought of either makes Mac continue thrashing against the restraints even though he knows it’s hopeless. 

The light from the computer monitor softly glints off a knife blade, and all Mac can think is how glad he is that at least the man doesn’t seem to mean meat in _that_ way. Yet. 

The cold of the knife slides tauntingly across his chest, and Mac can’t tell if it’s deep enough to bleed. Plenty of time for that though. The knife continues to trace little paths across his side, up the tender skin of the inside of his arm, and once, across his face close enough to touch his eyelashes. Mac holds so still it hurts. He doesn’t think any blood has really been drawn so far, and he doesn’t want to change that. Trails of goosebumps follow the knife's progress. 

It’s like an electrical shock when his captor flicks the knife sharply down his ribs, and Mac can’t help but flinch away and hiss in pain. This time he’s sure he feels the blood trickle from the wound. 

_He’s escalating. Before now, he hasn’t really done much damage. This is more risky- he’s starting to get bored of me and doesn’t care so much about making me last._

Pain licks across his collarbone, deep enough Mac almost thinks he hears the scrape of bone. Without pause, another slice across his chest, and then he loses count, they are coming faster and faster, and in the near pitch black, he can’t predict where the next one will strike. The pain is relentless and Mac can’t calm his breath, hyperventilating despite his best efforts. He just wants the pain to stop. 

Mac closes his eyes, and puts himself back in the sandbox. It’s the only other place this intense fear really makes sense. But here he is in control of the thing he’s afraid of. The pain fades a bit as he pictures the long forgotten warmth of the sun beating down on him, the taste of dust on his lips, and his whole world narrowed down to this one little contraption in front of him. Here, fear feels good. Like a challenge. Here, he sorts through the wires on the IED, and his hands don’t shake. Mac reminds himself not to sink too deep, afraid that his mind won’t find it’s way out again. 

 

Mac feels an oxygen mask gently placed over his face. 

_I’m saved_ he thinks, dragging himself back to painful awareness again. But something’s not right and his head is getting fuzzy and no, it’s not oxygen he’s breathing. He feels something wrapped around his wrist, and the last thing he hears before slipping into unconsciousness is that nauseating voice saying, “I got you a little present.”

 

Mac’s head spins and he opts to keep his eyes firmly shut for the time being. He jerks his arms once and underneath the fresh wave of pain this brings, he hears the heavy scrape of chains, not the rattle of cuffs. He never thought he would be so relieved to be in this little room again. His arms fall back to the floor and the chill of the concrete sends goosebumps skittering across his tattered skin, tugging painfully at the edges of his new wounds. 

When he finally risks opening his eyes, he doesn’t bother trying to sit up, knowing it would tear at the burns on his back and worse, it might reopen the wounds that cover the rest of his upper body. He carefully probes the injuries, trying to get an idea of how bad they are. His shirt is nowhere to be seen, but Mac quickly discovers most of his torso and a good portion of his arms are swathed in bandages. In a few places blood has soaked through them, and the deep slice on his collarbone seems to have left a pool of dried blood in the hollow of his throat. None of the slices seem like they truly did any damage, though some of the ones on his arms run frighteningly close to major veins. 

His fingers find the foreign object around his wrist, and his foggy memories remind him of his captor’s ‘present’. He brings his arm up, squinting past the pain and the brightness of the lights to see… a watch. He lets his arm fall and a sound escapes him- Mac doesn’t know if it’s a wry laugh or a sob. The date and time has been set to the time of his abduction, numbers blinking but never changing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know if there you have any advice or if there is anything you want to see in the future of the story


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not sure how I feel about this one, it's a little out there. We're in the belly of the beast now.

Mac hasn’t moved since his captor dumped him back in here. Nothing, not even the half dozen meals that have come and gone could tempt him to do anything to aggravate his wounds. He shivers off and on, gritting his teeth when he can’t stop his body from trying to shake him open. The only control Mac has left is over his consciousness. He can choose not to eat, not to be sedated again, even if it means starving to death. Anything to have _some_ control of his fate.

His captor seems to be patient and understanding of Mac’s choice, because the next time he shuts the lights off, he waits. He listens in the dark to Mac whispering “Something else something else something else” under his breath. 

The smile is clear in his voice as the man crouches down to conversationally ask, “Have you ever been force-fed?” He knew exactly what he was doing as he gave Mac a friendly pat on the chest and leaving. 

Mac holds his breath against the pain, shakily letting it out after the man is gone. The next time food is slid under the door, he obediently eats it, half hoping it is drugged to give him some relief from the pain. It only makes him feel sick and cold, stomach unused to being full. 

 

A faint pulsing noise wakes Mac up from a fitful sleep. The lights are still on, and the noise doesn’t seem to be getting any louder. He sits up in wonder, though, ignoring the way the bandages pull at his wounds. The edges of everything seem glaringly vibrant. He uses the chains to help pull himself to his feet, feeling the wetness of fresh blood soak the bandages. The chains glitter and reflect so much they look spiky- the whole world looks _sharp_. 

He looks down at his watch. The numbers blur and rearrange themselves. 

His logical brain reels, trying to understand what’s different- what’s different is that the floor is creaking and rolling unsteadily beneath his feet. He watches a seam open up between the floor and walls, and cracks spill across the concrete toward him. Puzzled, Mac edges back on tiptoe until he’s against the wall, holding his shaky self upright with the chains. 

The far corner of the room falls out of sight, and more and more of the floor goes crumbling after. He cranes his neck, trying to see where everything is falling to and instantly regrets it. The floor is opening up to reveal a straight drop, ten or so stories down. Mac can see the I beams poking out of each floor below him.

_Don’t look down, don’t look down_. A cold sweat springs up, and Mac is further chilled by the breeze softly moaning from the depths of the pit. It’s widened to nearly reach Mac’s toes, but seems to have stopped for now. He squeezes his eyes shut. “It’s not even that high.” He whispers to himself, knowing it’s a blatant lie, but trying to choke down the fear. 

He tries to find any humor in this, looking for a joke he could tell as if there were someone to hear it. He looks over the edge again. “This seems excessive,” he mutters. “A person’s fear of heights is maxed out at thirty-two feet. Beyond that, the fear doesn’t get any worse.” The hole seems to click out longer like a telescope, and Mac feels a rush of dizziness. He’s pressed back against the wall as far as he can be, but his legs are shaking and he knows he can’t hold on for much longer. 

_At least the fall is definitely far enough to kill you_ , he thinks, or maybe says. The concrete shifts beneath him again, and he loses his balance, and begins to fall. 

The very solid, intact, real floor rises up to meet him. Mac lies there, gasping from both shock and pain. _It wasn’t real. The food was drugged, just not with a sedative._

 

A voice chuckles as the tray is removed, Mac’s forehead against the reassuringly solid ground. “Not a fan of heights, hmm? I can work with that.” 

The hatch screeches shut and Mac blinks hard, trying to bring his brain back to reality. As logic sets in, the consequences of his unplanned drug trip strike him: Mac’s captor is going to use his fear of heights against him. Next time he’s drugged, likely as not, he’ll wake up face to face with his greatest fear. He can’t fight heights, can’t rewire them, and even in life or death situations Mac struggles to convince his brain to work around his fear. 

Mac revises his choice the choice to starve rather than be drugged, terrified by the helplessness that would come from being force fed. Better to eat and pretend that he has some choice in the matter than to give up control entirely. He wonders if it’s really worth it when the effort to lift the chains and eat leaves him exhausted and drained.

Sometimes Mac isn’t sure if he’s falling asleep or slipping into unconsciousness. He wakes up with wounds he doesn’t remember getting. Worse, more and more frequently he finds no evidence of injuries he does remember getting. Mac doesn’t know anymore what has actually happened to him and what is his own brain turning against him. 

Sprawled on the ground, Mac looks at the arm laying in front of him, feeling numbly detached from it. If it’s not _his_ arm, then the chains digging into his wrist bones won’t hurt him. The hand shaped bruises, the angry burns, the wounds that open at the slightest movement, even the cold cement- none of it hurts him if it’s not his arm. 

Mac’s fingers twitch at the sight of the watch on it though. He wants _so badly_ to take it apart. If nothing else, it would be something to _do_ and it would stop the glaring numbers from confusing him. He’d stopped checking it for the most part, because the time never changed. More recently it occasionally gave a cheerful beep, reminding him that the date had been reset to eleven o’clock nearly four months after he had been abducted. 

Mac was too tired to stop the hot frustration tears that pricked his eyes. He had no way of telling if the date was anything close to accurate or not. 

_If it has been four months and I haven’t been found, then I’m not going to be._

Hovering on the edge of sleep but being too afraid to succumb to it, Mac holds on to the warmth of every good memory he has. He remembers every time the team has come to his aid, and tells himself he still believes they will come for him, even though he’s not sure he really believes it. 

_Did I convince myself I’m more important to them than I am? Did I overestimate the place I had in their lives?_

It all begins to distort- Memories of sharing a beer around the campfire with Jack, only now noticing the laughs falling a little flat. Long-suffering glances between Samantha and Riley. Looking back, every smile looks forced, every compliment pitying. 

_How long did they look for me? More than the week or so for one of our lost weather balloons or crashed drones? If they’re not looking for me, what’s the point of getting out?_

 

It’s the gut wrenching rattle of metal on metal that brings Mac back to awareness, yet again cuffed to the metal table. He’s been here so many times that it dominates his dreams and hallucinations, a precursor of the real pain to come. 

Waiting for it to begin, listening to the footsteps and scrapes of whatever this monster was preparing was torture all by its self. 

_Come on, just get it over with already._

Sometimes the noises were familiar enough Mac could brace himself for what was coming. Because all his senses were searching uselessly into the dark, the eventual pain struck more intensely. This time, Mac had no clue. A hood was pulled over his face, dampening any noises, breath claustrophobically close.

The only warning was three freezing drips on his bare chest before the icy water paralyzed him, lungs straining, at once trying to draw a breath and hold it. Mac knew that his next breath would only bring pain, not relief. He struggled to inhale past the soaking cloth on over his face, lungs on fire. He struggles to slow his breathing, to calm down, but the panic is winning. Mac gasps faster and faster, sucking more water into his lungs. He knows it’s not enough to kill him, but each new flood of water makes him wish it would. 

_I can’t take much more of this._

His brain and weakened body seem to agree, and mercifully, he passes out. 

 

The lights reflect the patterns of water on the walls from the puddle Mac wakes up in, wobbling as he stirs and almost immediately begins to cough. The pseudo-drowning didn’t leave enough water in his lungs to truly cough against, but a disconcerting rattle accompanies each breath. 

The cold water he lays in feels heavenly on the scattered burns on his back, so Mac stays there despite the precious heat it saps from him. Eventually it will probably evaporate, but for now it feels kind of nice. 

His stomach lurches every time he nearly falls asleep, so instead Mac floats on the edge of it, habitually listing everything he knows about sleep (or lack thereof), keeping his mind occupied. He doesn’t want to return to the thoughts about his team or more lethal methods of escaping. 

_After only three or four nights I will probably start hallucinating. He won’t even have to drug me, because I’ll be doing his job for him. My immune system will become more compromised than it already is. If that’s even possible. Organs will shut down. In my condition, I’ve got a week, tops._

None of these thoughts get him any closer to being able to sleep. In a sick way, Mac feels like a kid counting down the days until school gets out. _One week left ‘till it’s over._

Over time, Mac feels his breathing grow shallower and has to work up the energy to roll onto his side and cough. Once he starts, he can’t stop, curling against the pain in his lungs and rebandaged wounds. By the time he rolls onto his back again, clammy with sweat, his breath wheezes and spots dance across his vision. 

_If I’m lucky, my body is too shot to develop a fever. The last thing I need is for my brain to get boiled. On the other hand, maybe it’s exactly what I need._

Food is slid in, but at this point Mac no longer has the energy to cough, let alone eat. He doesn’t know if the lights are off or if he just can’t see them anymore. Gentle hands prop him upright against the wall, and Mac tries ineffectively to squirm away. 

“Easy, easy.” 

Mac’s head swims, and the voice sounds like his ears are underwater. “Jack?” his voice grates out.

“That’s a hell of a fever you’ve got. Drink this.” 

A cup is pressed to his lips, and he swallows as best he can, just to make Jack happy. It’s some sort of bitter medicine and Mac grimaces. He’s not aware of Jack leaving, but Bozer takes over, painstakingly giving him sips of some sort of broth. The warmth of it is starkly contrasted against the cold that still surrounds him, but it’s enough to lull him to sleep. 

The chirp of the watch startles Mac awake, patterns from the puddle shuddering. Lights still glare down at him, chains still rattle when he jerks his wrists, and a cough still lingers in his chest. Hands shaking, he fumbles at the watch band, not caring about the consequences of tampering with it. Once he finally gets it off, he flings it at the farthest corner as hard as he can, some of his strength returned. It still lands with an underwhelming skitter. His arms drop again with a splash.

_More than a week left._


	7. Chapter 7

He was well enough for shivering and goosebumps again, and all of his skin ached. The bandages had wicked up the puddle and turned translucent, showing the wounds beneath. The puddle had shrunk some, but the cold room prevented it from evaporating very fast. 

The same water that put Mac into this whole mess was also one of the things that saved his brain from the fever. He wasn’t entirely sure where the fever dream ended and reality began, but logic told him there was no way he had been rescued. His captor was trying to make him last a little longer it seemed, because he came in to give him medicine every once in a while. 

Mac knew that it had to be administered on a schedule, but the illness made his mind slippery and he couldn’t keep track of how many times he was treated, and he wasn’t even certain if they were all real. 

 

Half the time his sick mind, desperate for comfort, and in an effort to make Mac accept treatment, turned the captor into Jack or Bozer. And once, memorably, his father. He doesn’t want to dwell on that one. 

“Shh,” Jack tells him, brushing his dripping hair out of his eyes. “We’ve got to keep quiet. I know this place isn’t exactly five-star, but it’s keeping us hidden from those bastards for now. Just take your medicine, exfil will be here soon.”

The next time Mac sees Jack though, it’s a different story. “Mac, you’re too dangerous to be allowed out. Those were innocent people.” 

“Wait…” Mac slurs. “What did I do?”

But the lights are on again, and Mac is alone. 

 

He can sit up on his own again, and his chest only barely crackles when he takes a deep breath, but his few muscles ache from coughing. He’s stronger now than he has been for the longest time, but he doesn’t have the strength to look at himself, even when the watch chirps insistently. 

He knows his skin is ugly and mottled from the bruises and cold, patched with burns and cuts and injuries that never happened that Mac still sees out of the corner of his eye. The oldest bruises seemed faintly tinged with green last time he looked, but it was hard to tell under the layers of new ones. Under his skin was worse, bones not even disguised by muscle anymore. 

His captor didn’t even have to drug him anymore, except for fun. Mac could hardly even walk, let alone struggle. He was dragged down dark hallways and easily attached to the table. It became clear that it was less to keep Mac from trying to escape, and more to keep him from falling off the table as he involuntarily writhed in pain. 

 

Mac had thought his fight or flight response was burned out, that any gut feelings he had left had been starved out. This time, when the lights shut off, his stomach sank and every hair rose. There was something different this time. 

It was frightening how easily his captor dragged his stumbling feet up the stairs. If only to distract him from any pain that was coming, Mac tried to count them. Or at least count each flight. He lost count every time he was harshly wrenched forward off his feet. They paused, and Mac stopped breathing. 

 

Night air, cold, but still warmer than Mac’s breath rushed in through an open door. He braced his feet in panic- he could see the _sky_. Stars pricked the black above him but quickly faded to a soft glow of city lights on the horizon. 

With a sound between a growl and a laugh Mac is dragged forward to the doorway. His feet give out and he scrabbles stay upright and stumble back into the dark, where he can’t be punished for trying to escape, ignoring the way his injuries are aggravated.

The man doesn’t hardly even pauses to dig his fingers deeper into his burned shoulders, just pulls Mac’s form forward onto the rooftop. 

_The stars, they could give you an idea of where you are, of how long it’s been._

The thought makes Mac feel like his old self again, and he can catch his breath. 

He loses himself again just as fast. 

His captor not hesitating, continues to stride across the roof and in one smooth motion, slings Mac onto the ledge.

Mac’s fingers weakly cling to the man's arms, twists them into his shirt, anything to try not to fall, his mind only filled with the yawning distance between him and the ground, and Mac finds he’s glad he lost count of how many flights of stairs he went up. 

“Please, please…” Mac’s trying to scream it, but he can barely manage a shaky whisper.

He’s given a cruel shake, and loses his grip on his captor, arms falling limp toward the ground. 

“Look at that skyline! Can you see your house from here? Or maybe the Phoenix?”

The faint wail of a siren drifts through the air, and Mac’s heart leaps with hope.  
His captor must see the hope on his face. “Oh ho ho, you’d better hope those officers aren’t looking for you. Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”

Mac can hardly concentrate on the man’s words dizzy with fear. “Well, what I’ve done. But as far as _they_ can tell… I mean, the only reason they would want you is to lock you up. And your team- they think you either did it and are running in shame, or you were framed and you don’t trust them enough to get their help. Or I guess they might think you don’t care about them enough to stick around.”

_I can’t…_

There’s nothing left in him. The distance below him seems inconsequential. Unreal. The pain where the man is holding him, careless of his wounds, is muted. The light cast by the city below him is enough to identify the man holding him, but Mac’s thoughts exist elsewhere from his body. 

Mac can’t hear the angry words, can’t feel the rough shakes dipping him farther and farther off the roof. His last distant thought is wondering if the man’s rage at his lack of reaction would be enough to make him lose his grip. 

 

He’s thrown limply back into the cell. The lights flash on and off, and the remains of the puddle become dyed steadily more red, and still Mac doesn’t move except for the nearly silent whisper of “Something else.”

All his captor wants to do is to methodically snap each bone in Mac’s hands, because if nothing else will get one last reaction out of him, that would. But if it was heights that snapped him out of it, perhaps heights would snap him back into it. Either way, Angus MacGyver was nearing his expiration date. 

 

Distantly, Mac is aware of a rushing sound. A friendly voice insists “Open your eyes, Angus.”

He does, and without meaning to his hands grab the only thing keeping him on this bridge, instead of in the roaring river below. 

“There he is!” The now familiar voice crows. “We aren’t done yet! Can’t have you running away into that big brain of yours!”

Mac works his gaze up his own arms, from slash to burn to bruise, to the thick band of raw skin at his wrists, to his white knuckles gripping the hand wrapped tightly around his bicep, feeling the other tangled painfully in his hair. He lets his gaze fall back to the river beneath him. 

“You know, I lied to you before. Nobody’s looking for you, as a criminal or otherwise. You’ve been gone so long, everyone gave up.Riley, the sappy girl, thought it would be sweet to plant forget-me-not's on your grave. I’ll admit, it was a beautiful service. Lovely flowers, everybody cried. Too bad it was for an empty casket.”

Blurry thoughts trickle through his brain. 

_There’s no way I can swim like this, even if I stay conscious after hitting the water. But it’s not as though I’ll last much longer in his hands. As far as everyone else knows, I’m dead. No loss if it becomes true._

His captor laughs, obviously finding pleasure in the terrified expression on Mac’s face. 

Mac takes one last look above him, not at his hands or his captors face, but at the sky, at the stars. Something must have changed in his face because the man isn’t laughing anymore. 

 

Closing his eyes, with the last of his strength, Mac digs his thumbs into the sensitive flesh of his captors wrist. Mac slips from his grasp, not hearing his aggravated yell as his ears are filled instead with the sound of rushing wind, then water, then silence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is pretty rushed because I feel like I've dragged the rest out too much.  
> There are not words to describe how grateful I am for all the comments and support <3


	8. Chapter 8

Jack knows tired. He knows frustration, he knows impatience. But Jack has never known them like this. Jack feels like Mac is farther away from him in this hospital bed than wherever he was held captive. Mac is eating enough on his own, but that was the last good news they had gotten for a while. 

Physically, he almost seemed to be getting worse. A doctor came in- Doctor Jamison according to his id badge, and frowned at the screens. Mac’s oxygen stats had been very low when he arrived, but they weren’t improving. He cupped his stethoscope in his hands, trying to warm it some, but both he and Jack were bracing for Mac’s reaction. What hurt more was when the doctor placed it on his chest, he watched Mac start to flinch at the cold but froze back to stillness so fast Jack was afraid he’d pulled something. 

“Take a deep breath for me, Mr. MacGyver.” Doctor Jamison said.  
Mac’s breaths instead hovered shallowly in his lungs. 

Doctor Jamison straightened, looping his stethoscope around his neck again.   
“So? Is he okay?” Jack asked, trying to keep tension out of his voice.

“It’s hard to tell. He needs more oxygen, and I’d like to take a chest xray." 

As soon as the oxygen mask is in sight, Jack learns something new about Mac’s time held captive. Something had been done that made oxygen masks a threat. He shrunk back from it, turning his face away, hands jerking up to try to reach to keep it away from him. His lips are moving, but Jack can’t tell what’ Mac’s trying to say.

“Can we do it without the mask?” Jack asks, stopping Doctor Jamison. The doctor hadn’t missed the reaction either. 

“Some is better than none. The cannula is better than the distress the mask will put on him it looks like.” He unloops a nasal cannula.

Jack is still afraid to touch Mac, each time seems to throw him back into the hands of his captor in Mac’s mind.   
_If nothing else, even if this doesn’t comfort Mac, at least this will distract him long enough for the doctor to put the cannula on._

Jack cautiously grabs Mac’s hand. It’s cold, still. It actually looks like the most unscathed part of him that Jack can see. Mac looks down at the touch. He doesn’t pull his hand away, but doesn’t react otherwise either. He looks unsure of how he feels about it. 

When Doctor Jamison steps back, Jack let’s go, not wanting to push Mac. The oxygen numbers tick up a bit. 

“I’m going to go get xrays figured out, see if we can’t figure out what’s going on. Judging by what he’s been through and his condition, it’s likely pneumonia.” 

_Pneumonia? Jack wonders. I haven’t even heard him cough. He just keeps doing those short, shallow, quiet breaths._

_Quiet_ breaths. Of course. Mac hasn’t had a moment alone hardly since he’s gotten here. Jack only really leaves the room when his dressings are being changed. For whatever reason, Mac is trying to be quiet, breathing like he’s hiding just around the corner from the bad guy. Too afraid to even take a deep breath. Afraid to start coughing, now that he’s strong enough to anyway. 

“Hold on buddy, let’s get some music playing or something so you can breathe. 

Jack pulls out his phone, trying to find a playlist that has a chance of calming Mac. He settles on one of the ‘chill indy’ mixes. 

“Chilly Indy, that’s what you kids listen to these days, right?” Jack asks, hitting play and turning up his phones volume as loud as it will go. Waiting for the doctor, Jack begins flipping through a National Geographic magazine from the waiting room for the fourth time. A few songs in, Mac coughs, clearly trying to be quiet still, but it devolves into a desperate coughing fit. Jack is unsure of how to help, watching Mac try to hunch forward to cough.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Jack rubs a hand soothingly on Mac’s back through the gown. 

Mac flinches away and chokes on a noise, coughing even harder. Jack flinches back just as hard, pushing the nurse call button instead. Maybe they can give Mac something. Or maybe give Jack something. 

The nurse comes in, asking Jack what’s wrong just to be sure as she already starts preparing medication for Mac. After what feels like ages, Mac leans back in the bed again, breath ragged. Just as the nurse is about to leave, Doctor Jamison returns to take Mac to take x rays. 

Jack, of course, tags along. Mac tenses and jumps at every new voice, every time he passed under a ceiling light, until Jack thinks if Mac tenses any more he’ll implode. Something in Mac must agree, because when they enter the lab Mac closes his eyes and doesn’t open them until he’s back in his room.   
He still doesn’t look at Doctor Jamison or his laptop as he shows Mac and Jack the results. 

“He’s got some minor scarring on his lungs.” The doctor jumps right in. “He probably developed pneumonia at some point while in captivity. It wasn’t treated very well, and probably never fully went away. All of his other symptoms covered it up when he first arrived here, but now he’s strong enough we can see the relapse. He also had a couple broken ribs here,” Doctor Jamison uses his pen to point out two of Mac’s ribs on the screen, “that were broken and weren’t set properly. They are too far healed and not going to cause much of a problem, so we won’t go in to correct them. For now, we’ll just keep Mr. MacGyver on antibiotics and oxygen.” 

Looking at the x rays should have been cool, Jack thought, except that they were just showing more ways Mac had been hurt, and Mac himself wasn’t even showing any interest in them. 

Jack sighs and rubs his hands over his face. “Okay. Thanks doc. Is that everything?” 

“Actually, I’d like to talk to you in the hall for a moment.”

Jack’s stomach drops, wondering what could possibly be so awful it couldn’t be discussed in front of Mac. He pauses a moment before following the doctor, starting the music on his phone again and leavinging it on the chair he’d been sitting on. Doctor Jamison looks at him quizzically. 

“I think he doesn’t want anyone to hear his breathing.” Jack tries to explain the unasked question. “He’s not taking deep breaths because he might be heard or might start coughing again.” 

He half smiles and shakes his head, a look that Mac and Jack have gotten many times. The look that is bewildered by the apparent telepathy between them.   
Jack bounces nervously on his toes. “So what is it? What’s wrong?” 

Doctor Jamison sobers. “It’s not Mr. MacGyver. I’m concerned about your health Mr. Dalton.” 

Jack lets out a half surprised, half relieved laugh. “Me?” 

“You aren’t sleeping enough, and I’m sure you aren’t eating enough. You need to go home and take a break.”

“Listen, doc, you’re job is to take care of Mac. I-”

Doctor Jamison cuts him off. “I _am_ taking care of Mr. MacGyver. If you don’t have enough sleep and proper nutrition, your immune system will suffer. If you get sick, it won’t be _safe_ for you to be in the same room with him without getting him sick.” 

Jack understands what the doctor is saying, but if anything happens to Mac while he’s gone…   
And Jack can’t stand the thought of trying to sleep or eat away from Mac, unable to tell how he’s doing at every second. _Okay, maybe I’m creeping into unhealthy territory._

“You’ll call me if anything changes?” Jack knows the doctor will, but he has to ask. 

“Of course. You need to look after yourself. I’ll take care of him.” 

Jack concedes, going back into the hospital room to retrieve his phone. “It’s not nearly as good as this Chill Indy Mix, but I guess it’ll do.” Jack tells Mac as he flips through channels on the T.V. until he finds a documentary on sharks. “I’ll be right back, I promise.” The soothing voice of the narrator covers the sound of Jacks footsteps leaving, of the door closing behind him. 

 

Jack looks down to check his phone, and his stomach drops in a whole new way as he walks down the hallway. 

 

_Six missed calls from Mattie. I’m screwed._

 

He calls her back, putting the phone on speaker as he hails a taxi, giving them directions. She picks up almost before the first ring finishes. 

“Dalton, when I call, I expect you to pick up.” 

“I’m sorry Mattie, long story. I had to talk to the doctor and I left music playing on it for him.”

“So what you’re saying is that, once again, blondie stole your phone?” Matties voice had softened and Jack could definitely hear a smile. 

“Something like that. Did you guys find anything?” 

“We’re still looking, but I think our best bet is Mac. I called for an update. How’s he doing?”

“We just got some x rays back. They gave him pneumonia and it’s coming back with a vengeance. And two broken ribs a while back. They’re healed now. He’s… I don’t know, conditioned to be quiet I think. He doesn’t want to breathe too loud, let alone cough, so I was leaving some background noise to hopefully help. Other than that, he’s the same.” Jack wished he could describe everything so clearly and clinically like the doctors. “They’re sending me home so I don’t get sick and get him sick.”

“You haven’t been home?” Mattie is incredulous. “How are you still standing? They’re right. Get home and look after yourself.” 

“Will do, boss.”

“You’d better.”

The taxi pulls up and Jack is at once relieved to be home, and wishes he weren’t here. After a shower that rivals his first one back from the sandbox, Jack crashes on the couch.

_Don’t want to get too comfy, just a quick nap then I’m back._

 

Jack wakes with the sun still up, fortunately, and rummages through his fridge for something to eat. The nap refreshed him, leaving him feeling better than he has in months. He pours the slightly chunky milk down the drain and opts for a microwave pizza. While waiting for it to heat, he checks his phone. No missed calls fortunately. He double checks the date. No wonder he’s so refreshed, he’s slept nearly twelve hours. 

Now Jack hurriedly shoves his shoes on his feet and tracks down his car keys from wherever Bozer left them when he drove Jacks car back. As soon as the pizza is done, he’s out the door on his way back to the hospital.

 

Mac is asleep when Jack arrives, so he settles in his chair feeling a little foolish for his rush to get here. He wishes he had stopped to grab something to keep him occupied. The same shark documentary is playing, and Jack half watches it as he fiddles with Mac’s knife, thrilled each time he discovers a new hidden tool. He unfolds each one and puts them back, then all at once. 

Jack hears the telltale jerk against the cuffs as Mac wakes up. He stands and pockets Mac’s knife as he walks back over. “Hey Mac. I’m back, see? Same documentary is on even. Did anything else even play?” Mac doesn’t answer. He looks like he’s bracing for pain like he does sometimes when he wakes up.  
“It’s okay, man. You’re safe.” Jack reaches for Mac’s hand to offer some physical comfort. 

Mac clenches it into a fist and pulls away, and this time Jack can hear what Mac is whispering under his breath. “Something else” over and over.   
Jack looks down at Mac’s unscathed hands and understands.

He wishes he didn’t.

He turns away, tears pricking hot in his eyes, feeling sick. Every injury was a choice to protect his hands. Like his hands were the only part of him that mattered.

Jack sniffs and turns back to Mac. _Mac without his hands. That’s like Mac without his knife…_

His knife. Jack pulls it out of his pocket. “Hey, man. This was left behind when they… when you were taken.” He says, setting the Swiss Army Knife on the food table, swung out of the way for the moment. “It’s funny, it’s how I knew something was wrong. You don’t go anywhere without the thing. I held onto it for you, but I figure you probably want it back.

Jack steps back. Mac resolutely ignores the knife. All the exhaustion that was pushed away by his twelve hour nap comes crashing back onto Jack’s shoulders. 

“I’ll be right back man. I need some coffee.” _Or something stronger._

Jack fills yet another cup with coffee and a nurse gives him a look that says she’s watching him and he’s getting close to the cutoff where she’ll take his keys and call him a cab.   
He walks back in the room, coffee in hand, to find Mac with one of his hands free, curled over the other one with his knife out. 

 

“Mac! What are you doing?” The coffee is abandoned on a table. Jack reaches Mac and wants to grab him, pull his hands away so he can see what he’s doing, but his hands freeze inches from Mac’s shoulders, afraid of setting him off. Worst case scenario flashes through Jacks mind, but there isn’t enough blood for that-

“Jack, thank god,” Mac leans back some, still using his knife to work the buckle loose. “I thought… When I saw I was restrained I thought I had been moved. You have to help me get out of here. Whatever you think I did, it isn’t true.” Mac won’t look Jack in the face.

Jack just stands helplessly, hands still frozen midair. To have left a Mac who couldn’t speak, and returned to find Mac looking more familiar than he had in a long time was taking Jack a minute to wrap his head around.

Mac turned to look at him in a puzzling way that wasn’t actually looking. More like he was shyly looking at the wall just over Jack’s shoulder. “What?”

All Jack could manage was a relieved “Mac” before wrapping his arms around him. Mac gasped softly, but relaxed into the embrace, swiss army knife and still restrained hand forgotten on top of the covers as he wrapped his free hand around Jack.


	9. Chapter 9

Jack knows that he should be calling Matty and Riley and Bozer to fill them in, give them the good news. He also knows that he should call Matty so she can be here for Mac’s recounting of what happened so they can start hunting the person responsible. He knows he should if nothing else, get one of the nurses or doctors to come check Mac out now that he’s more himself. 

But that would require untangling his arms from around Mac and letting go. 

Sooner than they’d like, they separate when Mac starts coughing. Jack lets go and raises the back of the bed so that he can curl forward to cough as he struggles get his breathing under control again. When Mac slumps back again, his pale cheeks are flushed.

“Do you want me to get a doctor?” Jack asks, untangling the cannula from where Mac had discarded it.

Mac shakes his head. “No, but” he looks down at his still-restrained wrist and tugs it a couple times. His eyes close and he lets out a shaky breath. “Can you get this off of me? I promise I won’t run. I want a chance to explain.”

“Explain what?” Jack had temporarily forgotten about the restraints. He wishes he’d thought of it sooner. He wishes it hadn’t had to be there at all. Mac doesn’t open his eyes as Jack walks to the other side of the bed and starts undoing the complicated buckle. Jack doesn’t miss the tense swallow and the way Mac’s muscles tremble like it’s taking everything he has not to move his arm. 

“Got it.” Jack says, and Mac pulls his arm to his chest, rubbing it as if reassuring himself he’s free. It takes a couple breaths before Mac opens his eyes again. Jack offers him the nasal cannula, and Mac grudgingly takes it, clumsily looping it behind his ears.

“Whatever it is that you think I did,” Mac says, “I didn’t do.”

“What are you talking about? What you did?”

A cloud of confusion shadows Mac’s face, his brow furrowing. “I thought… When I woke up here I was restrained, and he said…” He trails off looking down at his hands.

Jack wants to press him for details about this “he” who had done this to Mac, but was too relieved at being able to talk to him and too afraid of sending him back into his head. 

“Mac,” Jack said cautiously. “You were restrained because at first, you thought you were still… there. You were trying to get away, so the doctors thought it would be safer for you. How much do you remember?” There are a thousand other questions Jack wants answered right now, if not four months ago, but with Mac he’s willing to wait as long as it takes.

“Um…” He pulls his knees up a bit and rests his elbows on them, pressing the heels of his palms to his eyes. He laughs weakly and humorlessly, and it catches at the end. Jack doesn’t know if it’s his lungs or his heart responsible. 

“How long have I been here? How long was I…” _gone_? Mac doesn’t finish. “I’m not really sure what I remember. Things were pretty hazy near the end there and I’m not exactly sure what really happened and what didn’t.”

He drops his hands, eyes red, and picks up his swiss army knife from where it was half hidden under the blanket while Jack’s mind reels. Mac not knowing how long he was gone, not even knowing what was real.

The easy way Mac had said _near the end_. 

He was sure this was only the beginning of the things that will break his heart.

“You’ve been in the hospital for nine days, counting today.” Jack struggles to keep his voice even. “You were missing just over four months.”

For the first time Mac looks Jack dead in the eyes. “Four _months_? No… that’s not…” One hand comes up, protectively covering his ribs. It rises and falls faster as Mac’s breathing speeds up, his talking speeding up with it. “I tried to keep track with the bruises but I was too cold and hungry for it to work right, and there were the lights _all_ the _time_ and there was the stupid watch.” 

Jack wishes he hadn’t said anything. 

“And I’ve been here, I’ve been safe for nine days?” The last question was asked frantically, incredulously, but the end trailed off into painful coughing. His other hand splays over his chest and one of the monitors beeps a warning.

Jack’s hands hover, unsure of how to help, or even if he can. To his relief, the hospital room door swings open for Nurse Connors. 

She swings the monitor so she can see and says “Respirations are up, O2 stats are down. Do you know what happened?” She glances up at Jack as she unloops her stethoscope and holds it to Mac’s back.

“We were talking and…” Jack glances at Mac, wanting to say it tactfully. “It stressed him out.” he finishes lamely. 

“Glad to have you back with us, Agent MacGyver.” She says calmly, as though they weren’t watching him struggle for breath right in front of her. “We’re going to have to trade this out for an oxygen mask, okay? It will help you breathe easier.” She removed the cannula and held the mask. “Just oxygen.”

Mac had mostly stopped coughing, but his breathing hadn’t slowed, and at seeing the mask he held his hands defensively between it and him, and tries to swing his feet over the side of the bed. 

“Isn’t…” Nurse Connors looks down to the empty restraints then up at Jack.

Jack doesn’t want to touch Mac, doesn’t want to make this worse, but it’s that or torn out IV’s all over again. 

“Look, Mac,” Jack grabs Mac’s wrist in one hand and holds out the other to the nurse. “May I?” She hands Jack the oxygen mask. “Look.” He holds it over his own face and takes a breath. “Just oxygen.” 

Mac stills and his breathing slows fractionally, allowing Jack to hold it over his face. He waits, frozen for a few breaths, but when he remains conscious the tension melts out of him. Exhausted, he slumps back against the bed.

Jack feels a little loopy from the extra oxygen and realizes he’s still holding Mac’s wrist and can feel the uneven skin where he was restrained before they got him back. He gently set’s Mac’s hand down on the covers. Mac’s breathing continues to grow easier despite and because of the mask on his face, and the machines stop blinking at the numbers displayed. 

Jack watches Mac intentionally drag each breath in slowly. The mask fogs up with the ragged “Fuck” that Mac sighs. He rarely swears, but if there was a situation that called for it, this was it.

“Agent MacGyver?” Nurse Connors’ voice betrays nothing of what just happened. “If you like I can get you a sedative to help you relax.”

Jack knows the answer even before Mac shakes his head, wincing at the movement, hand darting to his collarbone.

“It’s possible your coughing reopened some of your injuries.” Nurse Connors says. “Is it alright if I check?” 

Mac closes his eyes momentarily and takes a deep breath. “Jack, do you want to grab a coffee?” 

Until now, Jack had always left the room when Mac’s bandages were being changed. He honestly didn’t want to know what had left his partner unresponsive in a hospital bed. But now? Maybe seeing the damage would help Jack know how to not make things worse. 

“You sure?” Jack asks. Mac’s eyes were pleading. 

“Yeah Mac.” he says softly. “I should call the team anyway, give them an update.”

Once in the hall, Jack nods to the officers outside Mac’s room and dials the Phoenix.

“Jack?” Matty answers.

“How’s Mac doing?” Riley and Bozer say almost in unison.

Jack doesn’t know how else to say it.

“He’s back.”


	10. Chapter 10

Mac asked Jack to step out of the room both to spare him from seeing everything that happened to him, even though Mac figures Jack has already seen. He also desperately needs a moment to think. It’s difficult anyway, with the mask over his face. Every few breaths the memory of the mask with drugs instead of oxygen sent his pulse racing.

_Four months._

He knows he cracked open some of the burns on his back, but the nurse was concerned about the blood she’d seen seeping through a bandage while she checked his breathing. She helped him shrug the hospital gown off his shoulders. Mac looked away, not wanting to see her expression no matter how contained it was. Carefully, she began peeling the tape off. 

_I’ve been out, I’ve been here for nine days._

“Yeah, it looks like some of the steri strips have come loose on a couple of these.” 

Mac looked down to watch as she fixed new ones in place, neatly taping him back together and re-covering the wounds. 

“Thanks.” Mac says, smoothing his hand over the new bandage.

“Of course.” Nurse Connors helps him pull the gown back up and laces at his side. “Do you have any questions? Anything I can help clear up” 

_So many_. Mac thinks, but instead asks, “How long do I have to keep this on for?” Gesturing to the oxygen mask. 

She studies the monitor. “We can switch back to the cannula now that you’re breathing’s better. It will be handy in case you start coughing again.”

 _Or have another panic attack._ Mac thinks bitterly, hands fumbling to take the mask off.

“If Jack’s out there, can you tell him he can come back in?”

“I think I’d have a hard time stopping him, but I’ll tell him. Just a heads up, but there’s going to be a bunch of doctors coming in and out for the next couple days to check on you.”

“Can they… wait?” Mac doesn’t want to be difficult, but his mind is still reeling and the fog of exhaustion is lingering. He wants Jack to help him straighten things out first, before reliving every detail with the psychologists they’re sure to send in.

“I’ll see what I can do, but no promises.”

Mac takes a deep breath, trying to sort out how much Jack needs to know, and how much Mac can spare him. All Mac wants to do is tell Jack all of it, give it all somewhere to be instead of trapped in his head. But Jack doesn’t need to be further hurt by the details. Before the door can entirely swing shut behind the nurse, Jack is bursting back in. 

 

“You alright? Stupid question, I mean-” 

Mac cuts Jack off. “I’m good, Jack. Mostly I’m just… confused.” 

“You and me both, kid.” Jack sit’s on the edge of the bed. “Is this about you saying you didn’t do what we think you did?”

“Partly.” Mac says, brow furrowing in concentration. “He said he framed me for something, that you guys were either hunting me down or had given up. And you said I was too dangerous to be let out.” Mac sees the look on Jack’s face and the memory gets more fuzzy. “Wait, I think that might have been when I was sick.” _Or drugged, but Jack doesn’t need to know that._

Jack’s eyes look a little misty. “We never stopped looking for you, Mac. All of what he said was a lie.”

Mac nods to himself, still not entirely convinced. “What month is it? Like I said earlier,” _During the panic attack_ “I couldn’t really keep track of time.”

“Today is March sixth.” 

Mac just nods. It felt like he had been there only weeks, but at the same time, _eternities_. 

Mac knows Jack has been patiently waiting to see how much he would tell him unprompted, and appreciates his restraint. 

Jack finally breaks the silence. “I have a lot of questions, but I don’t want to make you talk about this until you’re ready, so they can wait if you want.”

 _Here it comes._ He didn’t want to keep Jack in the dark. In fact, the reason he didn’t want to tell Jack everything was to keep him out of the dark Mac had been in. 

“It’s okay, Jack. Go ahead and ask.”

 

“You still don’t have to answer if you don’t want, but I guess start at the beginning. How did they get you?” Jack is watching Mac closely for any sign that it’s time for him to shut up. Jack wouldn’t even ask at all, except it’s been killing him for months not to know. And with Mac back, he has more questions than ever.

“I heard… a baby crying in the middle of the night. It was coming from this car seat on the front porch. There was just a phone in there playing a recording, but I noticed too late and they clocked me good in the head.” Mac brings a hand up to the side of his head, as if it still hurts. Maybe it does. 

Jack closes his eyes. _Of course they used his big heart against him._ He opens them again as Mac continues.

“Next thing I know, I’m… in a cell.”

“What kind of a cell? Do you know where?” 

Mac resolutely twists his hospital bracelet with shaky fingers, eyes staring past it. “I don’t want to talk about the room. It was probably an industrial building, several stories.” 

Jack watches the bracelet get pulled tighter and tighter in Mac’s hands, biting into his skin. Jack reaches for it. “Stop that, leave it alone.”

Mac seems to notice for the first time what he’s doing and drops it immediately, tensing. “Oh, right.” He retrieves his knife from the table the doctors grudgingly allowed it to stay on. “Can I get rid of this? It kinda bugs me.” 

Jack can see that it more than _kinda bugs_ him to have something around his wrist- he saw the marks newly covered in bandages. He briefly wonders if Mac had asked for them to be covered for his sake. 

“I mean, there’s probably some hospital policy against it, but yeah. Here, let me.” Jack plucks the knife from Mac’s hands before he can protest and opens the scissor tool. There’s no way Jack’s trusting Mac with something sharp the way his hands are shaking. Mac hesitates for a long moment, eyeing the tiny scissors. Finally he gives in, holding out his trembling arm, and Jack carefully snips through the bracelet, then tosses it and the closed knife onto the table. 

“Thanks.” Mac turns his attention to the blanket in front of him, worrying loose a thread that hadn’t been loose before. He glances up at Jack, waiting for him to continue.

“Do you remember where you were thrown in the river? Or how you got there?” If they know where Mac went into the water, it could give them a starting point to figuring out where he was held, even if the captor’s disposal method had effectively washed away the forensic evidence. He hadn’t counted on Mac surviving.

“He didn’t _throw_ me in, he wasn’t done with-” Mac bites his lip and looks at Jack. “I mean, it was a bridge. I’m not exactly sure where.”

It took all of Jack’s concentration to keep his face calm at Mac’s words. “‘Wasn’t done with you’? You jumped in the river to get away from him, in your condition?” He fought against the emotions trying to raise his voice, instead saying softly, “You could have drowned. I mean, you nearly did, more dead than alive when I found you.”

Mac twisted the now liberated thread between his fingers, not looking at Jack. “I was more dead than alive before I got to the river too.” Mac says to his hands.

“What happened? Don’t hold back on my account.” Jack says. “I want to know what happened. All the gory details.” He tries to joke, then realizes the details are probably truly gory, and despite having _lived_ through them, Mac is still trying to protect Jack from them.

“No you don’t.” Mac says softly.

“Listen, as long as you’re comfortable talking about it, I want to hear it. I’d rather you tell me what really happened instead of whatever my mind fills in.” _Or having to learn about it second hand from the doctors or the scars._

Mac is silent, and Jack’s worried he might be done answering questions, maybe for good.

Slowly, looking at his hands instead of Jack, he continues. “I don’t know how long the drive was. I wasn’t really all there at that point. He was trying to get a reaction out of me, and thought the height of the bridge would do it. Held me over the edge, but I made him drop me. No matter what, I wasn’t going back. I don’t think I remember anything after hitting the water.”

Jack pictures Mac, terrified, using the last of his strength to escape no matter what the cost. 

“I can fill you in a little there.” Jack doesn’t want to remember finding Mac on the riverbank, but being able to see Mac here, in front of him, made the memory less chilling. 

“Riley set up a computer program scanning police chatter and records of John Does coming into hospitals or morgues matching your description. There were a lot of false alarms.” Jack remembers the pit in his stomach every time he walked into a morgue, the guilt-ridden relief when it wasn’t Mac. The relief being replaced by the thought _if Mac’s not here, where is he?_

Mac looks like he wants to say something, but now that Jack has started, he can’t seem to stop.

“Then Riley intercepts a call to the police- a couple of joggers found a blond kid next to the river. I didn’t recognize you.” Jack’s voice catches and he clears his throat. “I thought some poor kid had gotten in over his head. I was going to check if he was alive because I _really_ needed some good news. And there you were, washed up on the riverbank. I thought for sure you were gone.” Jack sniffs and looks up at Mac.

“I’m sorry.” Mac whispers.

Jack bursts out a laugh, startling Mac. “You’re sorry?” He clasps Mac’s hand. “Mac, I’m just glad that you’re back, that you’re _alive_.” 

Mac frowns at this, as if not sure all of that statement is true.

Jack lets go and pats Mac’s hand. “I should stop bombarding you with questions and let you get some rest. It’s been a long day.”

It hadn’t, really, been a long day. Still, Jack could see Mac’s exhaustion. What little energy he had regained had been burned up by his panic attack, leaving him looking pale and drawn.

As if at Jack’s suggestion, Mac’s eyelids began to slowly close.

“I could use some sleep.” He relents, shifting into a more comfortable position. “Just… leave the lights on please.” 

“No problem.” Jack says, sliding off the edge of Mac’s bed. _You're going to have to explain that one to me one of these times._

For now, it’s enough for Jack to be able to settle into the chair next to Mac’s bed knowing he’s safe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two chapters in a row, because the first one is pretty short. Posting early because I'll be adventuring on Saturday. Thank you so much for reading!


	11. Chapter 11

Mac’s heart pounds so hard he can almost taste it, cold sweat sending chills skittering down his spine as he jolts awake. He scrubs his hands against the blanket trying to rid them of the tacky sensation of blood. Of cooling skin. His wrists are free, unweighted by chains or cuffs. He closes his eyes.

_I’ve been safe for nine- no, ten days now. Right? I didn’t hurt anyone, I found another way to escape. It was just a dream._

At the faint murmuring of doctors passing his room, Mac cracks his eyes back open, taking inventory of his surroundings. The cannula tickling his nose, the bone-aching cold loosening its grip, the sound of the same shark documentary playing again, all feel so real. But so did some of the other things he’s seen. Mac takes deep breaths through his nose, and some part of his waking up must have woken Jack as well. Seeing Mac awake, he’s instantly alert. 

The familiar sight of Jack helps clear away the remains of his nightmare.

“How’re you feeling?” Jack sits up straighter in his chair. 

“Had a nightmare.” Mac admits. “Make’s reality a little fuzzy sometimes.”

There’s a complicated expression on Jack’s face, and he seems to be debating with himself about something. Finally he rises to stand beside Mac and gently takes his hands from where they’re still worrying at the blanket. “You’re good. You got yourself out, and you’re safe in the hospital.”

Mac looks at their hands and tightens his grip experimentally. 

Jack clears his throat. “Riley was here. They’ve hit a dead end in the investigation, so she took a break to stop by your house to get you some clothes and things.” he nods toward the duffel bag sitting next to the chair. “She wanted wait around until you woke up. She’s gonna be pissed you waited until she went to get some real coffee.”

Mac slides his hand out of Jacks and raises the back of the bed so he’s sitting upright and coughs against the morning cobwebs, pausing to distractedly watch people passing outside the window. “Is she planning on coming back?”

Jack scoffs at the question. “Of course she’s coming back. She’s been dying to see you. Everyone has.” He slings the duffel bag onto the bed next to Mac for him to sort through and retreats back to the chair. “So, I talked to the doc earlier and he said he doesn’t want to put off a psych eval any longer. Sounds like it could be a busy day for you.”

Mac pushes the bag aside and swings his legs over the edge of the bed, shakily standing.

“Woah, woah, where are you trying to go?” Jack catches Mac’s arm and eases him back to sit on the bed as color drains from Mac’s face. “You’ve been lying down for a while. Need to give your blood some time to adjust before standing up all of a sudden.” 

“I just want to get some real clothes on before I have to talk to,” he gestures at the room in general, wincing as it tugs on his IV. “everyone. Not looking forward to the psych eval, but I’m not trying to make a run for it”

Mac soon finds he can only get half dressed because there wasn’t a way to put on a shirt without tangling the IV in it. He sighs in frustration, glaring at it. Everything in him is itching to remove it. 

“IV stays in.” Jack says, as though reading his thoughts. “You’ve got a lot of catching up to do with vitamins and such. And the antibiotics will knock out the pneumonia and get you off the oxygen sooner.”

Jack’s an expert at arguing with Mac. 

“I just want to get out of here already.” Mac stays sitting on the edge of the bed, more comfortable now that he’s not lying on his injuries. He checks the ties of the gown to make sure Jack can’t see any of the bandages beneath it. His arms were bad enough. Mac knows that the wounds pressed into his wrists would probably heal faster if they were uncovered, but as soon as he had the chance he asked for them to be bandaged. The sympathetic smile from the nurse told him she thought it was disturbing for him to see. 

In reality, Mac just didn’t want Jack to have to see them anymore. The scattered purple scars up and down his arms were healed enough that there was no point in covering them, and left Mac wishing for long sleeves. His captor seemed to find a special joy in the threat of getting as close to Mac’s hands as he could. Until he found more interesting things to do. 

A quick tap on the door is all the warning they get before Riley slips in, carrying a tray with two coffees and her backpack. 

“You’re awake!” She smiles, ditching the coffees on the table and her backpack next to it. 

“I’m not gonna pop any stitches if I hug you, right?” She says, her way of asking permission. 

“Don’t think so.” He can’t help but smile a little, wrapping his arms tightly around her. Having her here makes things feel a little more normal. A little more real. She’s careful not to hold too tight, and Mac wishes she didn’t have to know what happened to him. 

The thought is quickly pushed from his head when she steps back to hand Jack a coffee. 

“I would have gotten one for you too, but I figured you’re doctors wouldn’t like that. But, Mattie did send this.” A small box rattles as she tosses it on the bed next to him. Paperclips. It’s almost more of an inside joke now, Mac and his paperclips.

Mac feels unexpectedly choked by emotion. He turns the box over in his hands for a moment before he tucks them into the bag. “Believe me, this is more than enough.”

Jack gives Rileys hand a squeeze before taking a long drink of the coffee.

Their reunion is interrupted by a soft knock at the door. “Agent MacGyver?” 

Mac draws a deep breath to steel himself for what’s next. “Yeah.” 

Doctor Jamison enters the room trailed by two strangers. “This is Doctor Waters.”

“Please, call me Adam.” He reaches forward to shake Mac’s hand. Mac isn’t really sure he’s ready for people to be touching his hands, but he accepts anyway. “I’m a trauma counselor and psychiatrist.”

Doctor Jamison continues. “And this is Agent Rassmussen.” He smiles and nods as he shakes Mac’s hand. 

“The agency sent me to record this in case it becomes useful later on in putting this guy away.” 

Mac tries to subtly assess the people in front of him out of the corner of his eye as he fiddles with a zipper pull on the bag. Agent Rassmussens stride was a little shorter on his right, arm not swinging as far forward. He has an ankle holster in addition to the standard shoulder holster Mac assumes he has. Doctor Waters expression doesn’t change when he sees him, and his hands are full with a clipboard and waterbottle. It makes it difficult to get a read on him.

_Might be intentional. Another reason I don’t like psychologists. Or he’s seen enough worse, that this can’t get any reaction from him._

He must be taking too long to reply, because Jack quietly asks him “You alright?”

“Yeah, it’s just a lot.”

“We’ll be with you the whole time.” Jack says.

“Not yet.” Mac doesn’t look at Jack.

“What do you mean “not yet”?” Jack says, incredulous.

“I know I promised I’d tell you everything, but I want it to… make more sense in my head before I do.” Mac remembers Jacks hurt expression when he talked about what he now realizes was a hallucination. It looked a lot like the hurt expression on Jack’s face now. 

Mac isn’t ready to stare down two doctors and an agent on his own yet. _Riley already knows more than Jack. Probably had access to some report or file that Jack hasn’t seen because he’s been here._

“Riley’s an agent, and she has her laptop.” Mac says. Puzzled, Riley pulls it out of her backpack in confirmation. “She can record it.” Mac tries to bite down on the hint of desperation in his voice. 

It’s Doctor Waters who answers him. “We can have as few strangers in the room as possible. Riley can record it, and we can have everyone else wait outside while we talk.”

Mac holds back a sigh of relief, nodding gratefully. “That would be good.”

Agent Rassmussen looks slightly distressed at not being able to complete his assignment, but obediently follows Doctor Jamison outside. 

Jack hangs back. “You sure? I’ll stay if you want.”

“I know, Jack. I promise I’ll tell you everything. I just need to understand it a little better first. Figure out what happened and what didn’t.”

Jack pats his hand softly. “Alright. I’ll be outside. Yell if you need me.” The door clicks shut behind Jack as Mac leans back into bed, narrowly avoiding tangling himself in the oxygen tubing. He considers removing the cannula altogether, but decides against it. 

The room descends into an uncomfortable silence.

“So… how does this work?” Mac glances from Riley, who shrugs, to the doctor. 

“However you want it to, Angus.”

Mac flinches. “Mac. I go by Mac.”

“Of course.” Doctor Waters makes a note. “I’m not going to ask you to tell me anything about what happened unless you want to. I’m here to help you with any of the psychological repercussions of what happened, and to try to make sure the investigation doesn’t impede your healing. There’s a mandatory evaluation to complete, but we can cover anything missed at the end.”

Doctor Waters candidness is a relief. Mac knows his brain didn’t get out unscathed, as much as hates to admit it. He’s seen first hand the psychological impact of trauma, not only in the field, but in his loved ones as well. It’s usually less of an issue for him. Give him something to think about, something to do, and he can be fine. Most of the time.

_They would be more worried if I acted like I came out of this perfectly okay._

“Can we just focus on what we need to catch this guy?” Mac asks.

Doctor Waters nods. “If that’s what you want, absolutely. Just pretend I’m not here.”

Mac looks to Riley. “What do you need?”

“Literally anything you remember could help. We still don’t know where you were held, and if we can figure that out, we’ll be a lot closer to getting him.” She taps a few keys on her laptop. “Describe anything you remember seeing. The room you were in, the bridge, any of it. As long as you’re ready to.” 

Mac still doesn’t want to talk about that room. He’s afraid that talking about it will reveal that the hospital isn’t real, that he’s still there. He’s afraid that once he starts talking about it all, he won't be able to stop. He’s afraid of how Riley will look at him. 

_She already knows. Some of it at least._

Riley looks how she’s always looked, working with him to fill in pieces of the puzzle to solve a case. Magically pulling up solutions and escape routes on her laptop. 

“It was cold.” Mac closes his eyes, picturing it. “But it was still in LA, I think.”

“How do you know?” Riley asks softly, not questioning him, but looking for any clues she can get.

“He asked me if I could see my house from here. Or the Phoenix. I could see city lights from the rooftop, but I couldn’t focus enough to find any landmarks.”

“Rooftop? How many stories up was it? How many flights of stairs?” 

“I lost count.” Mac laughs wryly. “Probably thirty-two feet off the ground, at least.” Mac opens his eyes to see their confused looks. “It’s believed that a person’s fear of heights doesn’t get any worse after thirty-two feet. And I was…” He cuts himself off, seeing the burn of anger cross Riley’s face.

“You were…” She prompts.

“I was as scared as it gets.” Mac finishes, glancing at Doctor Waters before looking down so he doesn’t have to see their expressions. “Riley knows, I don’t like heights.”

She nods. “Do you remember anything else?”

“I didn’t see much of it. The room I was in, the ceiling was covered in lights. They were on nearly all the time. There must have been a camera in there too, because any time I did anything, he would turn off the lights and come for me.” 

The implications hung heavy in the air.

Mac runs a thumb along the bandage on his wrist. Half the things he says are for Riley’s help, and half are just to get it off his chest. 

“There was a heavy metal door with a hatch at the bottom. The walls and floor were concrete about 6 by 8 feet maybe? I guess I tried to get away one too many times, so he attached chains to the wall.”

Riley and Doctor Waters just listen, occasionally nodding encouragingly as Mac tries to carefully describe where he was without talking about actually being there. As he tries to verbally keep his distance from it. 

“What about when you tried to escape? Did you see anything?” Riley shakes him out of memories he’d rather not dwell on.

“The hall was dark too. Concrete floor. Some sort of trip wire.” He nearly spits the last bit. “There was another room, but I don’t know where it was in relation to the one I was usually in.” He rushes on. “I think it was bigger. I could see a bit of light from a computer screen, and there was a metal table of some sort with cuffs attached to it.” 

Mac’s trying to keep things clinical. They don’t need to know the details of how exactly he knows there’s running water, _it was_ cold _running water_ , that the concrete walls were at least six inches thick, probably more. _thick enough nobody heard him. Thick enough to bolt chains securely to the wall._ Still, even though he kept the details secret, the memories were still creeping up, coiling around his chest. Mac coughs, trying to dispel the feeling.

“I don’t remember anything about the bridge.” he finishes, defeated. 

“You gave me a lot more information to work with.” Riley says. “I think this will narrow things down a lot.”

“Mac, before we finish I have a few more questions to ask.” Until he spoke, Mac had almost forgotten Doctor Waters was in the room. These are the questions he’s dreading. 

Instead of answering right away, Mac looked to Riley. “You can’t tell Jack about any of this. I know this has to be recorded, and there has to be an agent in the room, but you can’t tell Jack.”

“Mac, I don’t know if I-”

“Please.” Mac knows it’s an unfair thing to ask her to keep secrets, but he will be able to be more honest if he knows Jack won’t be hurt by it right away. He wants a little distance and healing between it all. It will be easier to tell Jack about something that happened, instead of something that was still happening.

“Okay.” She says softly and reaches to give Mac’s hand a comforting squeeze. 

“Okay.” Mac echoes, looking up at Doctor Waters. 

He looks down at his clipboard. “What psychological symptoms are you experiencing?”

Mac notices he doesn’t ask _if_ he’s having symptoms, just what ones he’s having. “Nightmares. Hypervigilance maybe, and I’ve had a few panic attacks. And it’s sometimes difficult to tell what’s real and what isn’t, especially right after I wake up.”

He takes some notes. “How are you sleeping?”

“Mostly good, nightmares aside. More than I want to be.”

“That’s pretty typical. You’re body is doing a lot of work right now to heal, and you’re mind still thinks it has to be on alert. Both of which can be tiring. Are you having any thoughts of harming yourself?”

“No.”

“Are you participating in any risky behaviors?”

“I’m not participating in any behaviors. I’m stuck in this bed.” Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Riley unsuccessfully try to hide a smirk.

“Risky behavior is relative.” Adam flips to another page on his clipboard. “Agent Dalton says that yesterday you got yourself out of your restraints and were trying to escape. Pushing yourself too hard, physically or mentally, could be considered risky behavior right now.”

Mac shoots an angry glance at the door, surprised to see Jack observing through the window next to it. “I wasn’t trying to escape. That was a misunderstanding.”  
“Are you experiencing any intrusive thoughts?”

“Just bad memories that won’t go away.”

“What about any thoughts about harming others?”

Mac feels his blood freeze. 

_I could tear down a light fixture, club him with it, could break one of the light bulbs and stab him, could wrap these chains around his neck._

The memory-  
no, _dream_ of blood on his hands.

“Agent MacGyver?” 

Mac unconsciously licks his lips.

_Those are normal thoughts though, right? Given the situation?_

“Angus?”

He explodes, “Mac! It’s Mac, okay?” He realizes he’s not making a good case for himself just as Jack bursts back into the room. “The answer’s no, I’m not.” he finishes softly.

Doctor Waters marks something down as Jack asks, “What’s going on? Are you okay Mac?”

“I’m fine.” Mac says, trying to see what the doctor wrote. “I’m not a threat.” The doctor makes another note and Mac just barely sees what he thinks is the word “paranoia”. He bites down his protest, knowing that the fact that he tried to read upside down is only going to convince them further that he’s paranoid. 

Doctor Waters looks from Mac to Jack. “That’s all I need. The things you’re experiencing are not unexpected considering what you survived. And you seem to have an excellent support system.” He sends a pointed look in Jack’s direction. “And if you want I can prescribe you something to relax.” 

Mac’s grateful for the doctor’s effort to try to keep the details of his condition private. 

“No, I don’t want… I don’t want any drugs that will make me tired.”

“It’s an option if you change your mind.” He says, standing to leave.

 _I wont._ Mac thinks, and says “Thanks, but I think he could use it more than me.” He gestures to Jack. 

Jack raises his hands in defense. “I said yell if you need me, and I heard yelling.”

"Maybe so." Doctor Waters pauses with the door open. “I’ll be back in tomorrow to check on you.”

Mac drops his head forward into his hands, already feeling vaguely trapped by today’s visit. It was hard not to associate Doctor Waters with everything he’d been through. He wouldn't have even met him if this hadn't happened to him.

The word Doctor Waters used earlier catches in his mind. Less passive. He didn't just live through it.

_I survived._


	12. Chapter 12

Jack leans against the wall across from Mac’s room where he has an unobstructed view of Mac, but not the doctor or Riley. It stung, to be kicked out of the room by Mac, but Jack would do anything- _anything_ to make Mac feel like he had just a little more control of his life right now. 

He can see Mac laugh at something, but there’s no humor to it. Jack has never wished he could read lips more than he does right now. _Something about Riley and ice?_

Jack watches Mac’s eyes focus less and less on the present, focusing instead on something in the distance. Jack wants to be in there to remind Mac not to get lost in his head. At one point he stops talking altogether, going sickly pale. Jack’s starting for the door already when he hears muffled yelling. He’s only through the door in time to hear “The answer’s no, I’m not.” just as he asks what happened. 

Mac’s trying to have two conversations at once, unconvincingly saying “I’m fine” to Jack, made even less convincing when he turns back to Adam to plead “I’m not a threat.” Mac’s trying to be subtle about it, but Jack can see he’s trying to see the clipboard Adam holds before slumping in defeat. The doc seems to be wrapping things up anyway, not before making a sly comment about Jack’s overactive protective streak. 

He’s not dumb. He knows when the doctor offers Mac something to “relax” that it’s about more than a few nerves. Hell, he’s the one who watches the heart monitor jackrabbit every time Mac tries to hide a panic attack.

Even though Jack can’t see the heart monitor screen, he knows that the offer of drugs set Mac’s heart racing, and knows the answer before Mac can say “No”. 

Jack has a hard time taking Mac’s best effort at a glare seriously as he says “I think he could use it more than me”.

Still, Jack plays along. “Hey, I said yell if you need me, and I heard yelling.”

Mac’s head drops as soon as the doctor’s out of the room. 

“You okay? What was that about?” Mac doesn’t immediately answer, and when Jack looks to Riley, she suddenly is very interested in her computer screen. 

Mac gestures vaguely with one hand, face still half obscured by his other hand. “It’s all a bit suffocating.” His head jerks up as he sheepishly backtracks. “I mean, clearly it’s a lot better than things were.”

“I get it.” Riley says and seems startled as they both look at her. “One small room to another, people still poking at you all the time. It can’t be easy.”

A look of relief crosses Mac’s face as Riley explains what he was struggling to put into words. “Exactly.”

“Well then,” Jack rolls the IV stand back and forth experimentally. “What do you say we see if we can get this to go?”

Fifteen minutes and one debate with a doctor later, Mac makes his way down the hall, supported by the IV pole on one side and Jack on the other, with Riley trailing close behind.

“I’ll go down with you guys so I can get the search started at the Phoenix, then I’ll pick up Bozer on the way back so he can stop blowing up my phone.” 

“Stairs?” Jack jokes when they reach the end of the hallway. 

Mac gives Jack a withering look and smacks the elevator call button by way of answer.

They stop as they get off the elevator, about to go their separate ways.

“Hang on.” Mac says, reaching toward Riley as she turns away and she steps into his hug. Jack can just barely make out Mac’s whispered “It’s so good to see you again.”   
Riley nods against his hospital gown, choking out “you too” in reply. 

She waves at them over her shoulder as she heads to the parking garage. 

Mac and Jack head the opposite direction, to the courtyard. Mac’s pace quickens and he holds himself taller, hardly sparing an irritated glance at the IV pole as he drags it behind him. Jack struggles to keep a grip on Mac as he practically runs out the door, then stops dead in his tracks. 

He studies Mac’s face, worried he’ll see panic, but it’s not fear on Mac’s face. It was the expression of someone who hadn’t seen the _sky_ let alone a sunset in four months, now faced with gold-edged clouds against an orange sky, fading into a purple. The face of someone who had seen nothing but hard edges for the longest time seeing soft petaled flowers and a meandering creek. It was the face of someone who hadn’t had fresh air feeling the wind through his hair.

It was the expression Jack had been waiting four months to see.

Mac staggers against Jack, knees giving out, and he tries not to panic as he half carries Mac to a nearby bench and Mac collapses onto it. 

“Mac! What’s going on?” 

Mac pulls himself more upright on the bench. “Just lost my legs for a second. Haven’t been walking much lately.”

“You okay?”

Mac pushes his hair back revealing a brilliant grin. “More than okay.”

 

The doctors had agreed that time outside would be good for Mac, citing studies about healing times and nature. They were concerned about falls and torn stitches, but Mac flat out refused the wheelchair. In the end, they compromised and decided half an hour was a good place to start. They were also unsure of how Mac would feel about the dark after the sun set, and still considered him a flight risk.

Jack checks his watch again. “We’ve been out here for about half an hour. Better start heading back before the doctors get pissed.”

Mac doesn’t even drag his gaze off the sky when he says, “Just a minute”.

Jack stays quiet after that, even though “just a minute” was fifteen minutes ago. Soft solar lights glow through the dark garden along with bright blue lights marking the emergency buttons. Jack had been pulled aside and told that if something happens, pressing one of the buttons will bring medical personnel or hospital security running.

Despite the light pollution, some of the brightest stars are visible. Mac looks from one to another and Jack can imagine Mac filling in the constellations that can’t be seen and how many light years away each one is. 

Jack’s turns to Mac about to tell him that Riley and Bozer will be back any minute but stops, seeing Mac’s head resting on the back of the bench, eyes closed, breaths even and soft.

_Just another minute._ Jack thinks to himself. 

 

It ends up being Riley, not the doctors that hunt them down. She pushes the door open and spots them easily. 

“Mac, Jack! Nurse Connors-” She cuts herself off when Jack holds a finger to his lips. When she sees Mac peacefully asleep, her gaze softens. She sits on Jacks other side and whispers, “How long has he been like this?”

Jack shrugs. “Just for a minute. I was just about to wake him though. It’s getting a little cold out here and he doesn’t have enough meat on his bones to keep him warm.” He still makes no move to wake Mac. “I thought you were bringing Bozer, where is he?”

“Last I saw he was arguing with a nurse about the nutritional verses emotional value of delivery pizza and soda. I think he was winning.”

“Yeah, definitely sounds like we should get back. Right Mac?” Jack raises his voice a bit. Mac doesn’t stir. “Hey, Mac. Hello?” He finally taps Mac’s hand lightly. “Come on, buddy. Let’s go.” 

Mac startles awake, then groans, sitting up and rubbing the back of his neck. “What time is it? I was only gonna close my eyes for a second.”

“Famous last words.” Riley says as she and Jack help pull Mac to his feet to head back to his room. 

“You need a wheelchair?” Jack asks. Mac eyes Jack’s stiff movements from sitting still for so long. 

“Do you?”

Riley lets out a surprised laugh and Jack acts mock offended. “It was just a question. Besides, I’m not the one wearing the fancy gown here. Even if I was, I would still smoke both you guys asses in a wheelchair race.”

“Oh yeah? Maybe I’d better put you in a wheelchair so we can find out.” Mac taunts.  
The jokes continue back and forth in the elevator, Mac animatedly argued when he wasn’t laughing at whatever face Jack was pulling to make his point.

The elevator door opens with a ‘ping’ to reveal Bozer pacing in front of Mac’s room on the phone. As they get nearer, they can hear him ordering food with the same level of energy he uses to try to argue with someone in the field. He hangs up and spins around, only then noticing their approach. 

“Mac!” Bozer closes the distance and nearly takes Mac off his feet with the force of his hug. Jack can barely see a wince under Mac’s smile as he hugs Bozer back just as fiercely. 

“You have no idea how good it is to see you, man.” Mac says. 

When Bozer steps back, he looks at Mac with concern. “Why are you so cold?” 

“It’s no big deal, Boze. Temperatures dropped when the sun went down.” Mac explains, dragging the IV pole the rest of the way to his room. He was looking a little unsteady again. “And this doesn’t do much to keep me warm.” He plucks irritatedly at the hospital gown as he settled onto the edge of his bed. 

One of the nurses follows them in, handing Mac the pulse ox to reattach and listens to his lungs. As if by power of suggestion, he coughs as soon as the nurse steps back. It doesn’t sound like the painful harsh coughing that it used to. 

“We were going to give you five more minutes before sending hospital security after you.” the nurse says sternly, but Jack knows she can see the same thing he can: The time outside did Mac a world of good. 

“Blame him.” Jack says. “He was the one who fell asleep.”

The nurse straps a blood pressure cuff to Mac’s arm and seems happy with the reading. “You’re blood pressure is good, so I think we can switch you to oral antibiotics and take out the IV. I’m just going to go okay that with the doctor first, then I’ll be right back.” 

"That's good news." Jack says. He’d been watching Mac get more and more tired of it.

“Thank you.” Mac can’t hide the relief in his voice.

“And I have more good news.” Bozer says as the nurse leaves the room. “Pizza is on it’s way, and I brought all the best movies to watch.”

Jack was about to ask if Die Hard was included but stops. Might hit a little close to home for Mac right now. He can see the stack Bozer set down next to the TV as he figures out how to work it. Mostly feel-good type movies.

“Riley, you’re the computer wizard. You come help me make this thing work.” 

Riley rolls her eyes at Bozer’s back. “Hit the button on the far left.”

The disk tray pops out. 

“I knew that.” Bozer says, stepping back and turning on the TV. “Oh, hang on. This shark documentary looks cool.”

Mac groans. “I’ve slept through it enough times I could probably recite it word for word.”

“Alright then, Fly Away Home it is. Did you know, it has the same director and cinematographer as Never Cry Wolf?” 

“Cool…” Riley raises her eyebrows at Jack.

“Bozer, nobody’s ever heard of that.” Jack says.

“Maybe only cultured people have heard of it. You’d probably like it, Mr. Frostbutt.” Bozer is saved from Jack’s retaliation by his phone chirping. “Pizza’s here. I’ll go down and get it. Don’t start the movie without me!” Bozer calls from halfway down the hall. 

“I don’t trust him not to eat it by the time he gets back up here.” Jack follows Bozer. “Hey! This conversation isn’t over!” 

Riley and Mac are left alone to smirk at Bozer’s yelp echoing down the hall. 

“Listen, Riley, I never said thank you for staying with me earlier today. It really helped to have you there.”

“Of course.” She comes over to lean against the bed next to him. 

“I have another favor to ask.” Mac says.

“Sure, Mac. What is it?”

“I need you to convince Jack to go home tonight. I’m worried about him. He’s been on high alert the whole time I’ve been here, and he’s only gone home a couple times when Matty forced him to. He needs some real sleep, but I don’t think he’ll go if I ask.”

“I’ll see what I can do, but I doubt he’ll go quietly.”

They are interrupted by the nurses return. “Doctor says this can go.” She says, clamping off the IV tubing. She waits until Mac offers his arm to her before she starts peeling off the tape. “He says he wants you to stay here a couple more days for observation and another blood test, then technically you’re good to go home.” She guides his hand to press the cotton ball while she unrolls some coban. 

“Technically?” Mac asks. 

The nurse looks startled, like she revealed too much. “Your team can fill you in on that.” she says, before making herself scarce. 

Riley doesn’t look at him. 

“Can you turn around for a sec?” He asks, fumbling at the ties for his gown. She does, giving him privacy while he pulls on a sweater, pulling the sleeves down past the bandages on his wrists.

“What does she mean by ‘technically’?” He asks, and she turns back around a bit sheepishly. 

Riley takes his hand. “Look, even if you’re healthy enough to go home, there’s no guarantee you’ll be safe there. We still haven’t caught this guy, and we don’t want to take any chances. Mattie’s working on a safehouse for you, but until he’s found, you can’t go home.”

Mac tries not to let his frustration show. Even now, he’s still being held captive by that monster. “How is that going, anyway? The search for this guy?” He tries to say casually. 

Riley sighs. “It’s… going. There’s a lot of abandoned buildings in LA. We’re using what you gave us to narrow it down by unusual power usage and the specs you gave us, but it’s still a lot. But we’re going to find him and put him away so you can go home.” 

“Thank you. I-” Mac’s cut off by Jack carrying a three liter bottle of soda over his head like it’s a football and he just made a touchdown, followed by Bozer carrying a stack of pizza boxes and yelling at Jack to not shake up the soda. 

“Nice shirt.” Jack says as Riley steals the pizza from Bozer, leaving him free to try to steal the soda from Jack. Drink cups are tracked down and extra chairs commandeered as everyone settles in, making bets about whether or not Riley can successfully launch an olive into Bozer’s drink (she can), and who will fall asleep during the movie. (All of them, by end credits.)

_I can handle waiting to go home for a little longer._ Mac thinks before he drifts off. _This is feeling pretty close to home already._


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a much longer one than usual, and I might update sooner because a lot of it felt like filler. Bon appetit.

Jack had been planning to go home that night, honest. While he and Riley were dragging extra chairs toward Mac’s room, she had stopped him.

“Jack, when’s the last time you’ve been home?”

Scratching his neck uncomfortably, he tries to remember. “Day before yesterday, maybe? Not that long ago.”

Riley looks skeptical. “If you’re having a hard time remembering, it probably means it’s been too long. You need to get outside these walls, have some time to yourself. We’re worried about you.”

“ _We_ , huh. Did Mac put you up to this? Just because he’s in the hospital and gives you puppy-dog eyes doesn’t mean you have to do everything he says.”

“No- I mean, yes, Mac did ask me to talk to you, but I’m worried about you too. You look tired. Besides, Bozer and I can keep an eye on him while you rest and call if anything happens.”

The fact that Jack caves so easily shows how tired he really is. “Fine, I’ll go home _after_ the movie tonight if it will make you all happy. But you call if _anything_ happens. You get a funny feeling, if a nurse passes the room too many times, if Mac so much as sniffles, you call me.”

Riley raises her right hand. “Promise. Just take care of yourself for once.” He huffs and they resume dragging the chairs. 

 

Jack has been trained to stay awake for long hours- days even, watching from a sunbaked rooftop or through a window for any hint of danger. But here in Mac’s hospital room, the danger has passed. The easygoing familiarity between them all lulled away Jack’s worry. He swore he was going to stick around until the credits were over, check on Mac, then go. 

 

Jack stops halfway through stretching the familiar crick out of his back, surrounded by three deeply asleep agents. Seeing Riley and Bozer there reminded Jack that he was supposed to be asleep too, at home. He’s more than a little tempted to duck out for a minute, change his clothes, and come back in waking everybody up as though he’d been gone all night. Riley and Bozer are both capable, and Mac is getting closer to being as capable as he was before, and with two other Pheonix agents loitering nearby, Mac was safe. 

Jack eyes Mac, neck tilted awkwardly against the back of the bed, still raised from watching the movie. He’s still sleeping a lot, which the doctors say is normal. Jack has a hard time believing that when the Mac he knows can run for days on a fifteen minute cat nap and half a cup of coffee. 

Mac’s sweater folds loosely around him even though his bones aren’t so startlingly close to the surface of his skin now. The collar has slid to the side enough to reveal the corner of the bright white gauze taped to his collarbone. It’s comforting how much it contrasts against his skin. Jack thinks most of Mac’s remaining paleness is due to lack of sunlight, not sickness. 

Mac has still kept Jack mostly in the dark about his physical health, sending him out of the room while his injuries are poked and prodded. His psychological health… that’s more difficult to hide. Jack knows he’s probably only seen the surface of what’s going on in Mac’s head, but he’s seen enough to know it can’t be good. 

With Mac disconnected from the heart monitor, Jack can’t just glance at it to tell if Mac is panicking, but he doesn’t always need it. Mac’s eyebrows furrow and he’s silently repeating the same phrase Jack’s heard too many times. 

_Something else. You’re gonna have to explain to me exactly what that means one of these days._

Jack wants to wake Mac out of his nightmare, but he badly needs the sleep to heal. The position of Mac’s neck has his aching in sympathy, so he finds the button to lower the head of the bed and presses it. It it wakes him up, so be it. If not, then Jack will let Mac’s restless sleep continue. He glances over his shoulder to check if the noise woke the other two, but they remain in limp positions they’ll be regretting when they wake up. Mac shifts slightly and takes a slow, deep breath, and Jack’s sure he woke him up, until Mac sighs just as deeply, forehead smoothing. 

Seeing Mac sink into a more restful sleep, Jack realizes he really is tired, and there’s this uncomfortable twinge between his shoulder and spine that never quite goes away. Even though it was Mac who insisted Jack go home, he still scribbles a quick note letting Mac know he’ll be back soon and to call if he needs anything before picking up his go-bag. He doesn’t necessarily trust Mac to call if something happens, but he knows Bozer or Riley will, even if one of them has to pin Mac down while the other makes the call. Grimacing, Jack closes the door slowly, trying to not let the latch close in it’s surprisingly loud way. One last glance through the window shows he was successful in not waking any of them.

 

The light above the fire escape flickers between off and on, the sky barely lightening as he climbs up the stairs to his apartment. He stays awake long enough to shower, but just barely. This time, he doesn’t bother with the couch, instead relishing the feeling of stretching out, fully horizontal on his bed. 

 

“The people in films are always larger than life, that’s what we’re used to. So when they take a wide angle shot of nature with a human stuck in it, suddenly it changes the whole perspective.” 

“How so?”

Mac cracks his eyes open. Bozer and Riley are curled up in their chairs, still mostly buried under their blankets, drowsily carrying out a conversation in lowered voices while snacking on cold pizza. 

“The human subject is nearly lost in the scenery, making the viewer feel small and lost in nature as well.”

“But I still don’t see- oh, sorry Mac. Did we wake you?” Riley asks as he pushes himself upright and scrubs a hand across his face. 

“No, you’re good.” The third chair in the room is empty. “Wow, did Jack actually go home? I should have asked you to talk to him sooner, Riles.” 

“Apparently the only way he’ll listen is if we tag team him.”

“Guess so.” Mac tries to say through a yawn. “What were you two talking about? Something about being lost in nature?”

“I was just explaining to Riley what makes the movie so calming,” Bozer says. “Which is why she fell asleep ten minutes in.”

“Did not!”

The debate about who fell asleep when led back to the discussion on nature, which led the three of them down to the courtyard. Mac was significantly more steady on his feet this time, and the nurse let them ‘sneak’ past, reminding them to be back in time for Mac to talk to Doctor Waters. 

As they wander through the garden, the conversation wanders from giant prehistoric penguins, to Jurassic Park, to all the ways Mac had broken Jacks phone so far. By the time they make it back upstairs, Riley and Bozer are betting on how Mac would destroy Jack’s phone next. Mac would have happily ignored the time and stayed in the garden to get out of the visit with the psychiatrist, but Riley and Bozer wouldn’t let him. 

Shortly after Doctor Waters arrived, Bozer made himself scarce, Riley set up her computer, and Mac dug through his bag for the box of paperclips. 

“IV out and everything.” Doctor Waters notices. “How are you feeling?”

“It feels a lot better.” Mac answers, settling in a chair across from him instead of on the hospital bed.

“So,” Riley said before they could continue past small talk. “This has to be recorded, and there has to be an agent in the room, but nothing says you have to have me constantly listening in.” She holds up her headphones. “My turn for you to pretend I’m not here. If something comes up that you think is relevant to the case, just throw something at me. Otherwise, I’ll let you two talk in private.”

“Thanks Riley.” Mac doesn’t think it will make much of a difference, but the tinny sound of Riley’s music makes Mac tense less at the doctors questions. He still catches himself glancing at her, waiting for her to react to something he’s just said, but she’s bobbing her head to the music, not paying attention to him. 

“Is there anything in particular you wanted to start with?” Doctor Waters asks.   
Mac unfolds a paperclip. “Don’t think so.”

“Okay then, I wanted to go back to something from our last session. The question about having thoughts of harming other people bothered you. Do you want to talk about that?”

Mac’s been trying to ignore how last night’s dream ended with his hands safe, but coated in blood. 

“While I was in that room, I started thinking of every possible way I could turn anything I had into a weapon to incapacitate the man holding me so I could escape.” Mac’s voice grows quieter. “Eventually, it wasn’t just ways I could stop him, but ways I could kill him. And part of me must still want that because I dream about it.”

“Mac,” Doctor Waters says softly. “Anyone in your situation would have been thinking the same things, it doesn’t make you a threat to other people. Especially a mind like yours, used to solving problems, would look for any option to escape. If nothing else, the fact that you are feeling guilty about these thoughts just proves to me that you’re a genuinely good person.”

Mac ducks his head and bites back a childishly hopeful ‘really?’. _It’s normal. I wasn’t turned into something evil. I won't hurt anyone._ Still, the doctor’s last words don’t quite ring true to Mac.

The paperclip is almost a wobbly circle when it slips through Mac’s fingers and he almost growls in frustration. “Freaking shaky hands” he mutters to himself. 

“Did something happen to your hands?” 

“No,” Mac sucks in a deep breath. “No, nothing happened to my hands.” He can’t keep the bitterness out of his voice. “They should be fine, I did everything I could to make sure they stayed fine. None of the rest of it would have happened if I had just let him have my hands, but I made him find other things to do. Even after all that, they’re still…” ruined. He doesn’t finish.

“What does that mean, that you _made_ him find other things to do?” Doctor Water’s eyebrows are drawn together in concern. 

“It was all my choice. He let me choose every time if I wanted him to do something to my hands or if I wanted him to do… something else.” Mac nearly chokes on saying those words out loud. He says them in his dreams often enough, but never for anyone else to hear. “I think…” Mac swallows hard. “I think if I’d let him do what he wanted to my hands, he would have let me go.” 

“Have you considered that the shaking might be psychosomatic in nature?”

“Why would that be?” Mac asks. _It’s all in your head._ His brain viciously supplies.

“You used the word ‘wanted’. You had to choose the lesser of two evils, but that doesn’t mean you _wanted_ either option. Still, because you were told to choose, your mind is telling you that you asked for it.”

“But why would that make my hands shake?” 

“You were probably afraid that you weren’t going to be able to get back to safety with your hands intact. And now you’re out. It might be your brain’s way of coping with being safe again. It’s also possible that if, subconsciously or not, you blame yourself, that the shaking is your mind’s way of retaliating.”

“I don’t-” Mac stops and scoops the failed sculpture into the trash can before pulling his sleeves down over his hands. _Don’t you blame yourself, though?_

Riley looks up at them, gives Mac a soft smile, and goes back to her phone. Jack’s near supernatural ability to tell when something is up with Mac must be rubbing off on her. 

“Your loved ones would tell you it’s not your fault.” Doctor Waters nods toward Riley. “And I know it’s not your fault, so all that’s left is convincing your brain. Work on recognizing and stopping that thought process early.” He is silent for a moment, giving Mac a chance to speak if he wants. “Time’s almost up, do you have any questions? Anything you want us to cover before we stop?” Doctor Water’s says when Mac stays quiet. 

“Nothing comes to mind.” Mac answers.

“Alright then, I’ll see you tomorrow if something does come to mind.” When he stands to leave, Riley hangs her headphones around her neck. 

“Done for today?” She asks, fingers poised over the keyboard.

“Done.” Mac says. Today’s session didn’t leave him feeling crowded like yesterday. In fact, breathing is a lot easier now.

 

Jack shakes himself out of a dream sometime around four, remembering only that it had the lingering feeling of a bad dream, and that Mac was in it. 

_What else is new._

No urgent messages are waiting on his phone, so Jack turns on the TV for some background noise and makes himself a proper breakfast. Or lunch. That nap is going to really mess with his sleep schedule. He rattles through his fridge, tossing out expired food, including a produce bag of unrecognizable green slime, and a jar of something that might have actually been one of Mac’s science experiments that found its way to the back of Jack’s fridge when he was over. 

He takes his time heating a pan, grating some cheese, whisking the eggs. The bread was moldy, too far gone to salvage for toast, and Jack found himself missing life on the ranch where there were always some chickens around to toss scraps to. He tosses it in the trash instead. He turns on the coffeemaker, even though he’s probably had more coffee than is healthy for a person to consume in a year, let alone a few months. When his omelette is cooked, and he’s added a luxurious amount of creamer and sugar to his coffee, he actually gets out a plate and silverware and eats at the table.

Jack checks his phone again while carrying his dishes to the sink. No SOS texts yet. He wants to go back to check on Mac, to make sure today's meeting with the counselor goes well, but being home alone in his apartment still has the same refreshing feeling as stretching out in bed did. Besides, Bozer and Riley are there. 

He scuffs around the apartment, half watching whatever is on TV, half tidying. Not that there’s much to tidy- he hasn’t hardly lived here in months. The piles of laundry do add up though. Jack shakes out his go-bag into his already overflowing hamper and tosses in some of the last clean clothes he has. It’s a dire situation when he’s on his sixth favorite Metallica shirt. 

 

The sun is pretty low in the sky, and Jack wants to be back at the hospital to see Mac before he’s asleep again, so he doesn’t want to take the time to use the coin operated laundry machines in the basement. Mac will be going home soon, or to a safehouse at least. Jack will just drag his laundry over to do in Mac’s machine.   
Jack is immediately impatient when he gets in his car, so of course traffic is at a crawl. He checks his phone at every ‘stop’ of the ‘stop and go’ traffic, admitting to himself that it’s not just impatience he’s feeling. It’s the same feeling he’d had as he watched Mac run off after the bomb he was convinced was waiting in the village, not expecting Jack to follow.

 

Riley hates having to sit in on Mac’s sessions with the therapist, but she would rather it be her than a stranger. Yesterday she had called Mattie and asked if they really had to be recorded, if she had to be invading his privacy like that. Mattie had answered that if it were up to her, no. Oversight, however, wanted things to be strictly by the book. _If I ever meet him, I might just hit him with that book_ She thinks.

After working around rulebooks all her life, she knew how to exploit a loophole or two. 

 

Bozer comes back in a minute after Doctor Waters leaves, carrying food a little fresher than last night’s pizza. 

“I’ll go get this sent to Phoenix.” She says as an excuse to leave, snagging a croissant on her way past. Truth is, it’s more than that. She finds a quiet place to sit on the floor against the wall and puts her headphones back on. While Mac was talking to Doctor Waters, she had a hard time focusing on anything she was doing on her phone. She couldn’t stop thinking about everything Mac had said last time. 

She sends a video call to Mattie in the war room. 

“Riley, hows Mac?” Mattie answers almost immediately. 

“He’s fine.” Riley says softly. “But I think I know how to find this guy.” She pulls up a map on the war room screen. “We know there is an impossible number of abandoned buildings he could have held Mac in, but I can narrow it down with new search parameters.”

Mattie let’s Riley ramble while she works, knowing that like Mac, it helps her focus.

“I’m comparing a list of abandoned or disused buildings that have a basement and are at least four storeys tall against buildings that have the most disproportionately high power usage.” She pauses while the buildings are labeled on the map. Close to a dozen still. 

“Mac also said he thought he saw light from a computer screen. That’s no guarantee that there was internet, but…” she hits a key and all but three lables disappear. “There are three buildings that fit the profile that also have been using the internet.”

Mattie picks up her phone. “I need three TAC teams geared up and ready to go ten minutes ago. We want to be in and out before the sun goes down.” She demands. “You’ll have the addresses by the time you’re on the road. We’re looking at what is potentially a major break in the MacGyver case.”

She ends the call and turns back to Riley, just as soft as it was harsh a minute ago. “Good job, Riley.”

Riley shakes her head. “Don’t say that, not until we know we’ve got this guy.”

It’s a tense few minutes while they wait for the teams to get to the locations.

“Jack will be pissed he’s not on one of those teams.” Riley finally says, watching the teams GPS signatures close in on the buildings.

“This is too personal for him, and I want this man brought in alive if possible.” Mattie says, not without sympathy. “We still don’t know why Mac was taken.”

Before Riley can answer, one of the team leader’s body cam is switched on and she puts it up on the screen. She barely has time to see the crumbling stucco building before the wooden door is splintered open. Team two’s camera switches on, giving her a brief view of red brick covered in vines before they’re inside. Team three is still en route to the last building. Periodic calls of ‘clear!’ come through on camera one’s audio. Riley would have jumped at the flock of pigeons that explodes into view if she hadn’t already been so tense. 

Camera three switches on, showing an ominously looming concrete building, but before they can breach, team two has made their way into the brick building’s basement. “Careful, looks like there’s a trip wire.”

Riley blows up team two’s camera feed, covering the others. Under the bright flashlight beam, the wire is clearly visible. Riley’s heart is in her throat as she watches the team leader carefully step over the wire that was Mac’s literal downfall. The dark hallway swallows their lights as they continue, clearing three more empty rooms until they reach a metal door. It would be more fitting in a high security prison than some innocent looking abandoned building. 

The team rolls the heavy door open and rush inside, finding a dark, completely bare room. No, not completely empty- rows and rows of lights crookedly crowd the whole ceiling. The horrible feeling in Riley’s stomach is confirmed when a flashlight beam falls on two chains dripping down the wall. 

“Team one, team three, change of plans. Go back up team two.” Riley had been so wrapped up in the footage that Mattie’s voice startled her.

Team two efficiently moves on, following the bundle of wires trailing out of the cell. “I can hear something behind this door.” someone says in a low voice. Over coms Riley can faintly hear a voice, or maybe two voices. The team lines up to breach and Riley’s eyes are glued to the screen. She wants to finally face the man who hurt Mac.

The door slams against the wall and, jarringly, the lights are on in this room. Riley’s eyes rake over the room, but she can’t see anyone aside from the TAC team. Her stomach turns at the sight of what appears to be an embalming table fitted with cuffs above a drain in the floor, distracting her from the sounds that were originally heard through the door. 

“Clear.” The team leader approaches a computer set up in the corner. Riley still can’t wrap her mind around what she’s hearing until the grainy, green tinted video on the monitor comes into view. 

The quality would have rendered the person in the video unrecognizable if Riley didn’t know him so well. If she didn’t recognize his screams. 

She can’t watch anymore. She moves to slam her laptop closed when the lights shut off. The footage freezes a second later as the connection dies. Riley holds her breath, waiting for the backup generators to kick on. 

_It could just be a coincidence. Cruel, but statistically inevitable._

The generators don’t kick on.

_If he’s not there, then where is he? Where else would this creep go?_

A pang of fear sends Riley stumbling to her feet in the dark. She feels her way along the wall to Mac’s room, and tries to open the door quietly. “Hey, guys. It’s just me.” She warns as she closes the door behind her, trying to keep her voice level. She knows Mac doesn’t like the dark.

“Do you know what’s going on?” Bozer asks. 

Riley hesitates, hoping to hear Mac’s voice and be reassured he’s okay. And to get his screams out of her head. He stays quiet. She feels her way toward where Bozer’s voice was. 

“It’s nothing. The power went out is all.” _Probably._

“Aren’t hospitals supposed to have, like, backup generators?” Bozer asks. 

“Yeah, they’re probably just old.” Riley would have been better off not saying anything, because that was not one of her best lies. A sharp rap sounds at the door and Riley hears it open.

“Hey, Nurse Connors and I are going to track down someone who can tell us what’s happening. Agent Larson is going to be right outside your door until we get back.” Riley sighs in relief at the familiar voice of one of the Phoenix agents. 

She can’t place his name in the dark, and part of her wants to tell him to stick around just in case. _Just a power outage._ She reminds herself. _With monumentally bad timing._

“Sounds good.” She says, and the door clacks shut. “I’m going to call Jack. You good Mac? You’ve been pretty quiet.” 

There’s a scoff from the dark next to the bed, but it sounds a little choked. “Jack’s not going to be able to fix an old generator.” Mac’s joke is subtly calling her out on her earlier lie. 

“He can bring us a flashlight or something.” She replies. _We all would feel much better with Jack here._

“And maybe his ice cream so it doesn’t melt in the freezer.” Bozer adds. Neither of them acknowledge the way Mac’s fear prickles the air in the room.

“While you call Jack. I’m going to take a look at the generators, find out why they aren’t working.” Mac speaks up, and Riley can hear him moving.

“Absolutely not.” Riley and Bozer say in unison. 

“If they aren’t working, a lot of people are in danger.” he pauses. “I need to find _something_ to do besides just sitting here in the dark.”

“Just wait for me to call Jack. He’ll kill me if I let you wander off by yourself.” She says, and hears him stop moving.

In the near blinding glow of her phone screen, Riley can briefly see Mac standing facing the door, not shrinking or backing into a corner, but he’s rubbing his thumb shakily over his lower lip and whispering something to himself. She quickly dims her screen, wanting to conserve battery, and hits the speed dial for Jack. She can feel the other two listening for him to pick up. “ _The line is busy._ ” 

_Of all the times for Jack to be on the phone! It’s just another lousy coincidence._ She tells herself. 

“You keep trying to get through to Jack. Bozer, I need your phone so I can call the Phoenix and send a protection detail after him, and so I can use the light to fix the generator.” All of their tension is building onto the nerves they are all pretending not to be feeling.

“I’m sure Jack’s fine.” Bozer says. “Besides, can’t you use your phone?” It’s a halfhearted attempt at a joke. 

“I haven’t had a phone in over four months.” Mac says distractedly, mind already fixed on the generator problem.

Bozer turns the screen on so Mac can see to grab it. In the burst of light, Riley catches Bozer’s eye and shakes her head. His face falls in understanding: They can’t let Mac leave.

“You know what? I’ll call the Phoenix for you.” Bozer starts dialing.

“Fine. I’ll figure out a light on the way.” Riley can hear mild irritation in Mac’s voice as he heads for the door. 

“Mac, stop.” She stands between him and the door, and feels him flinch as he brushes past her. She puts a hand on the doorknob.

“I can’t just sit here in the dark.” Riley is glad that said dark is making her immune to his puppy-dog eyes. 

In the background, it sounds like Bozer is doing a lot more listening than talking. “Mattie is sending people to look after Jack. She doesn’t think it’s necessary, but won’t ignore your instinct.” He says as he puts his phone back in his pocket. Bozer is a terrible liar- Mattie must be worried too.

Mac reaches for the doorknob and instead of pulling away when he finds her hand already there, he rests it more heavily over hers. “Riley…”

It’s not a tone of voice he’s used on her before. There’s a warning in it that says he won’t stop unless she _makes_ him stop. 

“Mac, get back here or so help me I will cuff you to this bed myself.” Bozer says before either of them can move again. 

Mac jerks his hand back like he’s been burned. 

_Poor choice of words, Bozer._

After a long silence Mac says, “You know something I don’t, don’t you.” 

“I’m going to try Jack again.” Riley says instead of answering.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm hoping this chapter lives up to your expectations from the last one, but if not, let me know in the comments what you were expecting to happen.   
> I'm fairly certain this will be the last chapter except for an epilogue next week, but who knows. Thank you for reading and all your kind comments!

Jack is seeing red, and it’s not just the brake lights in front of him, bright against the oncoming night. He’s trying to be rational, but for Jack, rational means trusting his gut feelings. He can make fun of himself for being paranoid later. If he’s just being paranoid. 

Traffic moves forward again at a healthy pace before it lurches to a stop, and Jack hits the steering wheel. He barely restrains himself from venting his frustration on his horn. Traffic was a lot easier with Mac riding shotgun, infinitely patient with other people though impatient with himself. Jack could have just mispronounced some scientific lingo to get Mac worked up and off on a rant to take his mind off things.

_I could just call him, check in._ But Mac knew Jack as well as Jack knew him- he would pick up on the tension in his voice. _No point stressing him out over a gut feeling._

He stretches in his seat, trying to see around traffic in front of him to see if there’s a wreck that is slowing everything down. The car in front of him rolls forward a few inches and Jack can see a traffic light blinking red, broken. _What are the odds that the traffic lights act up while I’m on the way to the hospital with a bad feeling? What is it that Mac always says about coincidences?_

Mac would have said they are inevitable, but Mac and Jack have very different philosophies about coincidences.

Jack has his finger over the call button, deciding to check in with Riley instead, when his phone buzzes with an incoming call. His first thought is that he was right, and either Riley or Bozer is calling him. The ‘unknown number’ does nothing to calm his nerves.

Jack jabs the answer button. “How did you get this number?” 

It could have been some innocent telemarketer that had misdialed, or even Riley calling from a different phone, undeserving of his harsh answer.

“How is my Angus doing? Recovering well I expect? I’m hoping to have him ‘to go’.”

Jack slams the brakes despite traffic creeping forward in front of him. The car behind him gives a startled ‘beep’, stopping just short of his rear bumper.

“I’m going to ask you this nicely one time,” Jack growls, “Who are you and what do you want with Mac.” It comes out as more of a demand than a question. He switches lanes, hoping to turn onto a road moving a little faster. When he can see around the corner, the next stoplight is blinking too. 

The man on the other end of the phone just laughs, each one feeling like a punch to Jack’s gut. “The boy is a miracle worker! Have you seen what he can do with his hands? Rhetorical question, Jack. I know all about you ‘watching his back’.”

Jack knows he’s being taunted for not watching Mac’s back the one time he needed it most, but he can’t help but feel a pang of guilt. He wishes Riley were here, she could trace the call to its source. He closes the distance between his and the next car. He would feel a lot better if he was with Mac right now.

“I asked nicely, now-”

“Now, what? You’re going to get real stern?” The caller interrupts. “You can’t have thought I would let Angus go so easily, did you? Not after all the work I put in to find him after the bomb incident in New York. Sure, it was his brain doing most of the work, turning dumpster diving into an Olympic sport. All of that, because he doesn’t trust your hands more than his own.”

Jack’s nerves grate every time this monster says ‘Angus’. “Tell me where you are so you can see how you like my hands around your neck.”

“Threats already? In all his time with me, Angus never threatened me once, and you can’t last one minute? Not even when he was alone. ‘Alone’ is relative though. You should have seen how he glowed on the night vision camera! For the first little while, anyway.” 

Jack’s phone beeps, signaling another call trying to get through, but Jack can’t move the phone away from his ear to see who.

The man continues on. “Your hair gets kinda dull when you’re not eating enough, and with all the extra energy his body was spending to try to keep him warm, to try to heal… He became much less _luminous_.”

Jack swallows thickly, trying to push that image of Mac out of his head in favor of trying to move through traffic as quickly as possible. Something more was bothering Jack, but there are too many moving parts in his head right now for him to chase down what it is. He doesn’t speak, afraid his voice will shake.

“I fed him plenty, of course. He was rather picky about what went into it though. At first, he was a firecracker! Tried to escape over and over, even though the consequences were severe. He’s a slippery one, though, and a couple times I thought I’d lost him. We adapted. I gave him some accessories to stop that nonsense, didn’t open the door unless he ate his food and went to sleep. _He_ stopped fighting back and accepted his fate. For the most part. It helped that his refusal to eat weakened him.”

“You sick-”

“Expletive, expletive, expletive, I get it. But back to his hands- that is the point of all this, you know. It was so fun to watch him build his little gadgets. I question the decision to repair a motorcycle in the living room, but it didn’t stop me from being able to watch his clever hands work away. It got boring, though. The endless cycle of breaking this to fix that.”

_“Have him ‘to go’”. The traffic lights are keeping me from getting to the hospital in time. He’s already there. He might have Mac in his hands right now._

Jack jerks the wheel, jumping the curb and parking mostly on the sidewalk. Barely registering the church in front of his car, he gives half a prayer: _God, please let me be wrong about this._

He grabs his service weapon and flings the door open to the sound of shocked and angry drivers honking after him as he sprints toward the hospital.

“Was that the sound of an epiphany? Don’t strain yourself, Jack.” The man mocks, but Jack doesn’t waste his breath answering.

“Where was I? Yes, Angus always breaking one thing to fix another. It got me thinking, how does he prioritize? What makes something deserving of being fixed, and something else deserving of being broken? I wanted to test that for myself.”

Jack darts through traffic underneath one of the blinking lights, eliciting a new string of honks. He’s only half listening to the creep on the phone, all of his energy going to running. He almost stops in his tracks when the hospital comes into view. It’s dark, the only light reflecting up the windows from the ambulances taking critical patients to other hospitals. 

“The question was how to catch Mac off guard. Then sweet little Valorie called, and I might have listened in as she asked Mac for help on some clever contraption she was building. Good thing it wasn’t your phone I had to bug, by the way. You seem to go through a lot of them. Valorie didn’t know that he had come back from some mission at five in the morning, and it didn’t look to me like he got much sleep while he was away. So he’s just fallen asleep when she calls. When he sees who it is he answers in the kindest, most patient voice imaginable, and goes to make himself coffee. I knew that even his smart brain wouldn’t win over his kind heart if he thought a child was in danger.”

The hospital looms over him and Jack squints, ambulance lights jarring his night vision. A couple police officers yell after him, but they’re too busy trying to organize the evacuation chaos that they don’t give chase. He slams through the doors and into the stairwell, briefly tucking the phone against his shoulder to check his clip, though he knows his gun is in working order. 

He’s taking the stairs two at a time, listening to captain exposition monologing his evil plan, wishing Mac was on a less tactically-advantageous floor. He pushes harder, lungs burning.

“I wanted to see just how much Mac prioritized his trusted hands, how much he was willing to let me break if it meant his hands were safe. I kept my word, even when he broke the rules. I let him have a choice- _hands, or something else_. Every single time he begged for something else. He even started saying it in his sleep. Does he still? I bet he does.”

Jack can’t help the breathless snarl at that.

“You’ll have to excuse me, Jack. Places to be!” The line goes dead. The abrupt end to the conversation worries Jack, and he pushes his legs faster.

Jack’s eyes have adjusted to the dark again by the time he reaches Mac’s floor. He puts his phone in his pocket and opens the door into the hallway. He can barely see, but it’s empty. Even the Phoenix agents who were supposed to be guarding Mac are missing. Chills roll down his spine, the situation feeling like too many horror movies he’d watched but worse. This time it’s real. He levels the gun in front of him and creeps toward Mac’s room, desperately trying to silence his heavy breathing, terrified of what he will find. 

_They probably already got Mac out of here at the first sign of trouble, that’s all._

He turns the handle of Mac’s door, but meets resistance after a couple inches. Jack slams his shoulder against it, opening it a bit wider. It’s just enough for him to slip through. Nightmarish visions of someone slumped against the door, too weak to open it and escape haunt him. It ends up being what saves him.

Jack slips into the room and stoops, feeling for whatever was blocking the door.   
He barely has the time to think _please don’t be a body_ when something solid smashes into the door above him, accompanied by a yell of “Not today!”

“Bozer?” 

“Jack?” 

From further in the room a noise escapes Riley, half relief, half exasperation. “Would it kill you to answer the phone, Jack?”

He straightens up and feels his way past the bed blocking the door. _Just the bed._ “You’re all okay? Mac?” He’s the only one who Jack hasn’t heard from yet. 

The near silence he gets back is unnerving. 

Somewhere in the dark, there is faint whispering. _This must be killing Mac._

Mac’s on his feet though, so it’s enough for Jack. “Where are the agents?”

“One of them went with the nurse to find out what was going on. Agent Larson was right outside the door.” Riley answers.

“He wasn’t there when I got here.” 

“Where would he have gone?” Bozer asks, sounding like he already knew the answer. He had seen more than his fair share of horror movies. “I’ll text Mattie.”

“Tell her to send all available units here, but we need to get moving. Mac, we need to go, now.” Jack doesn’t get a reply. He’s following the sound of Mac’s voice when Riley turns on her phone’s flashlight. 

In the sharp light, Mac looks gaunt and skeletal. He winces at the light, his eyes barely visible behind the shadows, focused on nothing in particular. 

_As if this needed to be any more like a horror movie._

“Mac!” He tries again.

_We don’t have time for this. I can worry about worsening Mac’s trauma later, if I get us out of this alive._

Jack reaches to grab Mac’s shoulder, ready to drag him out of this place by force if he has to. At the last second, Jack changes his mind, grabbing a handful of Mac’s sweater at his shoulder instead, hoping that by not touching him it's enough to avoid giving him a panic attack.

“Mac, it’s me. We’ve got to go.” Jack tries one last time. Mac drags his gaze to Jack’s face.

“Right.” Mac blinks. “Right, we should go. The Phoenix agents brought you?”

“Who? No, I brought myself. Now I don’t want to lose you in the dark, but we’re going to have to do this without our lights. I don’t know where this guy is, and hopefully he won’t know where we are if we keep the lights off.” 

Jack grabs Mac’s hand, but Mac flinches and pulls it away distractedly hissing “Sssome-” before stopping himself. 

“Some what? We’ve got to go.” Jack repeats.

Mac shakes himself. “Nothing.”

Jack grabs Mac’s hand again and places it on his shoulder. He feels it shake. “I need to keep both my hands free, so I need you to keep a hold of me so you don’t go wandering off.” He’s trying to lighten the mood. “Riley and Bozer, them I trust to follow me, but you’re a squirrly one.”

Mac squeezes Jack’s shoulder once. “Let’s go.”

Jack nods to Riley who turns off the flashlight. They make their way to the door, pausing for a moment to let their eyes get used to the dark again. He leads them forward, trying to keep to the wall. 

_It’s a straight shot down the hall, then down seven flights of stairs. By then hopefully I’ll have more backup so we can put an end to this._

They are barely down the first flight of stairs when Jack’s phone buzzes. He jumps, causing Mac to briefly flinch away. 

“Good thing we’re in a hospital, I think I just had a heart attack.” Jack jokes quietly, pulling his phone out of his pocket, hoping It’s Mattie, or his mother, or even Murdoc at this point.

“What’s going on?” Riley hisses from somewhere behind Mac.

Jack looks grimly down at the unknown number glaring up from the screen and hits the answer button, saying nothing.

“Jack, I see you’re going to make this fun for me.” 

Mac’s fingers dig almost painfully into his shoulder, and Jack knows Mac can recognize the voice through the phone. He wants so badly to just hang up, spare him from the taunting he knows is coming. He starts forward again. 

“You’re going to find out exactly how fun in a minute here.” Jack whispers. If he can keep this guy on the line long enough for them to get to safety, Riley will be able to trace it. 

“Tell Angus hi for me.” Comes the stage-whispered reply.

Jack can’t believe Mac is still standing if the rest of him is shaking as badly as his hand.

The voice through the phone jumps back to its normal volume. “This reminds me of that time you got past me into the hall, Angus.” The use of his first name must bother Mac, because the man is using it far more often than most people would, emphasizing it each time. “You must have thought you had made it. You were still faster than me at that point, so you must have been sure you were going to outrun me and escape. What’s that saying though? “Work smarter, not harder?” Should have watched your feet.”

Jack is counting down the levels left to go: _Five more. We’re almost there._

“I’m surprised they wanted you back, Angus. Recovery time is gonna be a bitch, and they could easily switch you out for the newer model. Some other bomb tech, one that will actually touch a gun.”

Mac’s breathing has picked up and Jack can tell he’s fighting down a panic attack. _Just hold on a little longer, Mac._

Jack is too focused on Mac’s breathing to notice the slight echo to the voice through the phone. 

“It’s not like they can keep you safe anyway. Jack can’t stay within arms reach forever, and now that you’re on the mend, I can’t wait to do it all over again.”

 

Mac makes a strangled noise and his hand spasms into a clawed grip on Jack’s shoulder before being wrenched away. A ‘bang’ echoes up and down the stairwell, and Jack is already reaching for the door to level four that slammed shut, phone clattering down the next flight.

“Mac!” Riley and Bozer shout, and Jack ignores the sound of them racing down the last few stairs to catch up to him. 

It’s Bozer who has the presence of mind to turn on his phone’s flashlight, but Jack wishes he hadn’t.

He’s right there. Fifteen feet away is the monster who took Mac, and now he’s taken him again, using Mac as a shield.

 

Jack hardly even sees him. All he can focus on is Mac, arm twisted behind him, panicked breaths hissing through gritted teeth, and the glint of the knife already drawing blood from his throat. Mac’s other hand grips the arm holding the knife, trying to force it away from himself as he’s being pulled backward.  
Jack takes a step forward. 

“Stand down, Jack, or I’ll cut my losses and open him up right here, if you’ll excuse the pun.” Mac makes a high pitched grunt as the blade is pressed deeper into his neck. 

Helpless, Jack stops, watching Mac get dragged away. The shadows dance as Bozer’s hand shakes. Mac can hardly see Jack, head tilted back instinctively trying to get away from the knife. Still, Jack can see the defeat in Mac’s eyes.

Jack is desperately considering taking the shot anyway. Even if he hits Mac too, it might be sparing him a fate worse than death. Hand steady, he tightens his grip on the trigger, trying to aim for the visible sliver of the man holding Mac. Jack wishes he had time to tell Bozer and Riley to look away. 

 

Mac stumbles, and whether it was accidentally or on purpose, it gives Jack more of an opening than he had before. He fires, and he’s running forward almost before the sound of the gunshot fades, watching as Mac and his captor fall.

Mac only makes it to his knees before Jack catches him, frantically checking for a bullet hole. Bozer is running for them, light swinging wildly. Jack thinks he shouted Mac’s name, but the blood is rushing in his ears too loudly for him to hear. He wishes Bozer would hold the light still for _just a second_ so he can see if Mac is shot, if he killed Mac.

The light steadies, and he feels one of Mac’s hands tightly grip his shoulder. He watches Mac bring his other hand up to his neck, wincing when he pulls it away covered in blood. Jack stares, waiting for new blood to bloom across Mac’s sweater because he’s sure he shot Mac. 

There is now way there’s enough good luck left between the two of them for Mac to make it out of this.

Mac’s hand roughly shakes his shoulder, and Jack realizes Mac has been talking to him. He drags his gaze from the blood on Mac’s hand to his face. 

“I’m okay, Jack.”

Jack pulls him into a relieved hug, shirt growing sticky from Mac’s sluggishly bleeding neck wound, still not quite believing that Mac is safe. 

“Mac! Jack!” Riley’s dismayed voice is accompanied by dozens of heavy footsteps. She must have slipped away at some point and brought the calvary. 

“They’re okay!” Bozer reassures her as his light is overpowered by the rest of the TAC teams. 

Jack knows they’re on his side, but he still grips Mac tighter as he watches them kick the knife away, internally daring anyone to try to take Mac from him again. 

 

Jack helped Mac to his feet so they could find somewhere to sit out of the way, but still hasn’t let go of him. He’s keeping one hand on Mac’s arm, and still finds himself checking Mac’s sweater for bullet holes. Mattie is here now, Riley and Bozer filling her in on what happened, giving them a moment of space. 

When Nurse Connors saw Mac bleeding, she threatened to pry Jack off him so she could treat his wound. Mac’s gaze flickers to every movement, occasionally darting to the body under the white sheet, and Jack’s afraid he would jump out of his skin if anyone else were to touch him. _I can clean and close a wound like this. I’ve done it before in far less favorable conditions._

“I’ll take care of it.” He says, and there’s understanding in her eyes when she doesn’t fight him on it. Just hands him the supplies before going to talk to Mattie, keeping an eye on them from a distance. 

 

Mac hardly reacts as Jack cleans the drying blood from Mac’s neck and starts pulling the edges of the wound together with a row of butterfly bandages. Someone has moved the body onto a gurney and Mac’s eyes follow it as it passes. 

“We could stop them so you can look, if you want. Help prove that it’s really over.” Jack offers. 

_It’s not over, not really. Not for Mac anyway. There will still be bad dreams and old scars. But I want Mac to be convinced he’s safe again._

Mac tears his gaze away from the body so quickly it tugs at the wound Jack is still closing.

“Hey, easy. I’m still duct taping you back together.”

“I don’t need to put a face to my nightmares. I didn’t want it to end like this.” Mac says, closing his eyes. 

Jack fixes the last bandage into place. “I know.”


	15. Chapter 15

The house coming into sight settled something in Mac’s mind that the hospital stay, the death of his captor, and even Jack hadn’t yet been able to. He is home. He’s safe. 

Once the car is stationary, Mac is out the door before Jack can even turn off the engine. He works a key off his key ring as he jogs a few steps to catch up to Mac.

“I hung onto this, checked in on the place a few times while you were gone.” Jack places the key in Mac’s hand.

Last time he was here, Mac hadn’t had the chance to lock the door. He feels like there should be blood or crime scene tape here. But it’s not a crime scene anymore, and things happened so fast that Mac hadn’t left a trace. Except for his knife. Mac pats his pocket, reassuring himself it is still there. 

Everything comes back to him, muscle memory. He tosses the key onto the counter and opens the fridge out of habit, still covered in the same concert fliers and reminders that were already months out of date when he was taken. There’s nothing in there except bottled water. Jack must have cleaned it out, and Mac was glad he didn’t have to deal with four months of rotten food. 

Jack settles in on the couch and turns on the TV, keeping one eye on Mac while giving him space to wander around and adjust. Jack seemed more nervous about Mac going home than Mac himself was, asking the doctors if they were absolutely sure it was fine and that he wasn’t going to keel over dead the second he walked in the door. He’s a little surprised Jack didn’t clear the house room by room in full TAC gear before letting Mac inside.

Mac goes to his room first, shrugging his duffle bag off at the foot of his bed. His desk is strewn with electronics and small machines in varying states of deconstruction, as well as scattered papers with equations and diagrams. He draws a line in the faint layer of dust that has settled over his desk. 

The room across the hall is more of a guest room now that Bozer has moved in with Leanna, but it sounds like Jack plans on staying there a while. Mac had tried to convince him he would be fine, that there isn’t any danger anymore, but Jack claimed he had so much laundry to do that he wouldn’t be able to find enough quarters and he might as well just stay over it would take so long. Mac relented, grateful for Jack making excuses to watch his back. 

As he passes back through the kitchen, Mac scuffs his feet and hears the reassuring hollow sound of his (semi) secret escape hatch. He runs a finger along the spines of the books on the shelf and knocks his knuckles against the back of a chair. He can feel Jack watching him, even though he’s focused on the TV, as he walks behind the couch to make his way onto the back porch. 

The view is comfortingly familiar as he leans on the railing looking out over the valley. Today, smog obscures some of the more distant buildings, including the Phoenix. If it was a clear day, and someone with binoculars knew where to look, one corner was visible around another building.

The sun bakes the wood of the deck, filling the air with the scent of cedar. The heat is making him drowsy, even though it’s only early afternoon. As he heads back inside, something itches right below his shoulder blade. It could be the tape peeling off a bandage, or just one of the wounds working on healing, but Mac has been meaning to check the extent of the damage anyway. Might as well get it done now.

 

Jack is about to go check on Mac when he comes back inside, mumbling something about sleep and shutting himself in his room. 

He looks after him for a minute, steeling himself for what he’s about to do, until he can’t take it anymore. What could have happened to Mac that was so awful that he doesn’t think Jack can handle it? After everything they have seen and been through together? He sees Mac moving a little stiffly at times, and until now he assumed it was anxiety. Since coming home, Mac seemed completely at ease, but Jack saw him unconsciously wince as he reached up to run his finger over the spines of books on a shelf above his head. Jack is afraid the doctors had missed something, that Mac was so good at hiding his injuries that he managed to slip it past everyone. Mac hates hospitals, and it wouldn’t be unlike him to hide something to try to get home sooner than was healthy. 

Jack isn’t completely clueless when it comes to technology- only half. He at least knows how to access the Phoenix’s digital case files. After everything had gone down at the hospital and they had managed to drag Jack away from Mac, there had been an unofficial debrief. Jack had explained the phone call he had gotten while the traffic lights were down, and Riley filled him in on what happened leading up to him nearly getting brained by Bozer. Riley told him that when the TAC team didn’t find anyone in the building, but did find a video playing, she had gotten a bad feeling and the power shut off, proving her right.

When Riley had gotten ahold of the guys computer, she had found dozens of video files labeled by date. The biggest file had been playing when the TAC team came in and was unnamed. Riley hadn’t watched the whole thing, telling Jack that she had seen enough to know he shouldn’t watch it. 

Jack taps the video file and hits play.He can’t help but turn away before the first blow strikes, holding his phone face down, sickened. Even with the volume nearly muted, Jack can hear Mac’s bit back noises of pain and can’t help but look back. Each new horror inflicted on Mac in the grainy darkness turns Jack’s stomach.   
Seeing Mac shove past his captor and vanish into the hallway, he feels a surge of hope, even though he knows it doesn’t succeed in the end. 

Jack skips forward through the video, watching new injuries appear, sometimes covered by bandages, sometimes still bleeding sluggishly. He watches Mac warring with himself, shivering, each time food is slid into the cell and how quickly his ribs start to show. The moment Jack can’t truly can’t watch anymore is when the lights stay on for a long time. Jack thinks the video froze and skips ahead, but the image stays the same. 

Mac, lying still on the ground, unmoving. He doesn’t pace or shiver. He barely breathes. His half closed eyes just stare unseeing into space. Only because Jack saw Mac walk down the hall can Jack believe the person in the video is alive. 

Jack shudders, pausing the video. He turns back to the TV, but he can’t shake the sight of Mac’s half dead form. He needs to remind himself that Mac is really okay, that he isn’t still alone in that room. Jack walks softly down the hall, afraid of waking Mac, and knocks quietly on his door.

“Mac?” There’s no answer. Cracking the door open, he peers in. He just needs to see Mac, safe at home, then he can leave him alone. 

The bed is empty, and Jack’s stomach sinks in an all too familiar way. He enters the room fully, hand on his gun, relaxing when he sees the door of the bathroom open a crack. All he can see is Mac’s hand holding the rim of the sink in a white knuckled grip and bandages littering the floor. 

“Mac, you okay?” Jack tries again, about to push the door open.   
Mac jolts, then tries to close the door, hiding himself behind it so Jack only sees his face. 

“I’m fine Jack, I-” Mac’s eyes drop to Jack’s hand, still holding the phone. A look of horror crosses his face. 

 

Peeling the bandages off his chest and abdomen is easy. Mac twists, trying to see his back in the mirror. Starting at his shoulders, he works the tape off of one bandage, then another, and another. He knows there are a lot, he had to sit through the nurse replacing them day after day. 

His arms ache, and at this point he’s doing it mostly by feel. Every time he reaches over his shoulder, there is somehow yet another bandage to be torn off. His searching fingers brush across tender skin and he winces, tearing off more tape. When he can’t feel any more bandages, he turns back to the mirror. 

His back is _ruined_. 

He hasn’t seen himself in front of a mirror in a long time, and to finally take in all the scars and still healing wounds all at once has him gripping the sink for stability. Questions he already knows the answer to crowd his mind:

_When did that all happen? How long was I there? Did all of this happen while I was there? Was I somehow not there for all of it?_

Mac closes his eyes, sucking in a deep breath. 

 

He jumps when he hears Jack’s voice. He hadn’t heard him approach.

“Mac, you okay?”

_How much did he see?_

He tries to push the door shut before Jack sees more. “I’m fine, Jack. I-” 

Mac’s grip on the door slackens. 

 

He had known early on that his captor had been watching him through a camera. He had even suspected that the footage was being saved for his captor to watch later. He had hoped that the footage would be lost or destroyed, or buried so deep in Phoenix’s files that it would never resurface. 

Nothing could prepare him to see it on Jack’s phone.

“You watched it?” Mac’s voice is more breathless than he’d like it to be. 

_I can’t- there’s nothing I can hide from Jack anymore._

Mac staggers back a few steps, leaning heavily on the sink again. 

Jack glances down, realization dawning on his face, and quickly turns the screen off, then opens the door the rest of the way, clearing a path through the pile of bandages.

 

It’s Jacks turn to stare in horror. 

The way Mac leans against the sink focusing on the drifts of bandages at his feet, Jack is able to see his back reflected in the mirror. The scars Jack had been able to see on Mac’s arms were nothing compared to the rest. Lines crisscross his entire torso. Some are faded into ridges that are almost white, others still angry red and purple with dots along each side where the sutures were. The burns though, scattered mostly across his back and shoulders, they are still tiredly healing from the edges in. 

Any way Mac moves must pull at stiffening scars and unhealed burns. Jack remembers every time he hugged Mac, or patted him on the back. There wouldn’t have been a place Jack could have touched Mac without hurting him. There probably still isn’t.

“I’m fine.” Mac says again, turning around and wrenching the hot water on. 

“How can you be fine? How can you be anything close to okay after this?” Jack shakes his phone as he approaches.

Mac studies the sink drain until the mirror fogs over, then picks up a tube of scar cream, carefully feeling for the scars on his back. “I don’t exactly have a choice, Jack. I’m either moving forward, or staying trapped where I was. I’ve spent more than enough time trapped.” 

After watching the footage of Mac, Jack realized he should have known the man lied- Mac would have never stopped trying to escape. It kept him going, kept him alive. 

_Mac is still trying to escape._

 

Jack reaches for the tube of cream. “Gimmie that. Let me help.” He tries to sound upbeat and joking, but it comes out soft. 

Mac side steps away from him, holding it out of reach. “I’ve got it.”

“Come on, you can’t reach all of them.” Jack follows Mac and once again reaches for it. Mac backs up again, and his gaze slides off Jack’s face, looking just over his shoulder, face a little blanker that it was a second ago. 

Jack backs away from Mac, cursing himself for crowding him and making him feel threatened. 

Mac furrows his brow and steps back in front of the sink. “I can manage. I just want to be a little more in control again.” 

Mac looks sideways at Jack, guilt tightening his expression. “I don’t think I can put the bandages back on myself though.”

Jack fights the urge to roll his eyes. Fights the urge to grab Mac by the shoulders and _shake_ the guilt and apologies out of his head. 

“Yeah, I can give you a hand with that.”

They stay quiet after that, silence only broken when Jack accidentally tugs painfully at the bandage, drawing a hiss of pain from Mac and a ‘sorry’ from Jack. 

Once finished, the discarded bandages swept into the trash, Jack picks up Mac’s sweater from where it’s crumpled in the corner and hands it to him. 

Mac puts it on and shuts the water off. “Thank you, Jack. I’m sorry for-”

Jack doesn’t let him finish. “There’s nothing to be sorry for, man.”

Mac nods, eyes on the floor. “Wasn’t kidding about needing sleep, though.” He tries to say through a yawn. 

Jack scuffs a hand through Mac’s hair. “Looks like. Besides, I’ve got a cooking competition show to get back to and yell at.”

The last thing Jack sees as he leaves Mac’s room is Mac taking his knife out of his pocket and setting in carefully on the bedside table.

 

When Mac comes back out a couple hours later, he’s wearing short sleeves. It hangs off him looser than it did before, but Jack still smiles. He wants to joke about if the fear of heatstroke finally got to him, but he keeps quiet. 

As Mac turns on the coffee machine, Jack notices the sweat sticking his hair to the back of his neck and the tension in his shoulders while he waits for it to brew.  
Mac pours himself a mug of coffee, cradling it in his hands and hunching over it as if trying to shake a chill. 

“You sure that’s a good idea? It’s like…” Jack checks his watch. “Almost six.”

“It’ll be fine.” Mac joins Jack on the couch changing the subject. “Did I miss anything interesting?”

“Yeah, this guy way over caramelized his crème brûlée, so the judges are definitely going to send him home.” Jack eyes him and lets the subject change.

“Rookie mistake.” Mac says mock-gravely. 

By the time the judges disqualify the crème-flambé guy, Mac has finished his coffee and goes back to refill his mug. 

“Thanks, man.” Jack says, plucking it from Mac’s hands as he sits back down, getting an irritated glare in response. 

“Look, I know this game. You don’t want nightmares, so you figure you just won’t sleep at all. I’ve tried it, but it’s not worth the lost sleep, believe me.”

Mac stands back up and gets a new mug out of the cupboard, pouring himself more coffee.

“You haven’t had nightmares like these.” Mac mutters as he retreats back down the hall with his coffee, leaving Jack reeling at the abrupt souring of the mood.

The abandoned mug of coffee and Mac’s stormy expression make Jack restless. He wants to punch something- Not Mac, or even his captor. In the past, he’s almost always been able to punch or shoot or headbutt whatever was hurting Mac. When it’s Mac’s own mind, Jack is frustratingly helpless, which leaves him itching for something to hit.

Deciding to channel the restlessness into something useful, he writes a note and leaves it on the counter: _Picking some stuff up at my apartment. I’ll be back before you see this probably._

While loading two duffel bags worth of laundry into his car, Jack throws his box of cuban cigars into the dumpster. After seeing the burns Mac has, he can’t stomach the thought of lighting one. 

 

 

Weeks later, Mac’s nightmares still sometimes wake Jack. He stays in bed, hating himself as he listens to Mac toss and turn and plead. It’s better for Mac to sleep rather than be woken from the nightmare. There’s a chance he won’t even remember it tomorrow. 

It isn’t until the noise dies down that Jack gets out of bed and checks on him. The quiet either means the nightmare’s over and Mac is sleeping calmly again, or it woke Mac up. 

If the former is true, Jack can go back to sleep himself. If it’s the latter, Jack goes out to the deck to join Mac silently staring into the fire. 

 

Those nights grow less and less frequent as Mac’s life falls back into old routines. The fridge is restocked, sweaters are buried in the closet even though he still reaches for them out of habit. Abandoned projects are finished and new projects are abandoned in favor of different new projects. 

Some mornings though, Mac has heavy circles under his eyes and Jack knows that the nightmares Mac still does have are quieter. 

 

It’s the thunder that wakes Jack this time, rain ratteling against the windowpanes. As always, as long as he’s awake, he crosses the hall to check on Mac. The bed is empty. He shakes off bad memories and walks down the hall, expecting to find Mac on the couch or in the kitchen working on an ill-advised cup of coffee. He’s not there. 

Before Jack can panic, he checks out the window to the back porch to see that yes, the fire is fighting the rain to barely illuminate a figure next to it. 

_Is he insane?_

Jack forgoes a coat and steps out into the storm to find Mac choking on a flashback in the chilling downpour. 

_I used to think the good thing about nightmares was that they only happened when you’re asleep._

He grabs Mac’s arm to try to pull him out of the flashback and is nearly sick.   
Mac’s skin is cool and slick with rain and Jack is almost back on the riverbank for a moment, but Jack grits his teeth.

_We can’t both be having flashbacks because if he’s having a flashback, and I’m having a flashback, then who’s driving the bus?_

Mac is coughing and shuddering, blinking rain out of his eyes. He used to love rainstorms, even when Afghanistan made him lose his love for thunder and lightning, and used to talk about missing the cooler temperatures of Mission City. 

 

The rainstorm had caught Mac by surprise while he was recovering in front of the fire from a vivid nightmare. The rain and the closeness of the memories left him stuck being waterboarded again. He spent an hour in a scalding bath trying to feel warm again after Jack brought him back inside, and Jack spent almost as long trying to wash the memory of cold skin off his hands.


	16. Epilogue

“Don’t move.”

Mac freezes midstep. Bozer is on his hands and knees, studying the carpet intensely. A maniquin wearing a lovely dress is watching disdainfully. It’s warm enough for the windows to be open, and the material shimmers slightly in the sunlight as it’s caught in a breeze. 

“What’s going on, Bozer? What are you looking for?”

“I dropped a pin and I can’t find it.”

“You try a magnet?” 

Bozer holds one up in answer. “I think it must have gotten stuck down in the carpet where the magnet can’t pull it out.” 

“Give me a sec.” Mac leaves the room.

“Mac? Mac! Don’t leave me here! I’m in bare feet!” Bozer calls after.

Mac grabs a dusty handheld radio off the shelf in the garage and a calculator from his desk drawer, turning them both on and holding them back to back. Carefully, he goes over to Bozer and sweeps it over the carpet in front of him. 

“Not that I’m complaining, but what are you even doing here? Is there not enough room at your place to sew?”

“It’s not that, it’s just, I’m making Leanna a new bullet resistant dress for our anniversary and I wanted to surprise her, so I couldn’t do it at our place or at the Phoenix.”

Anniversary? Mac looks for a ring on Bozer’s finger. Did they get married while I was... The calculator chirps. 

“Here it is.” Mac deftly works it free from where it had gotten stuck in the fibers. “Anniversary?”

“What?” Bozer asks. “Oh, right. This week will be the one year anniversary of when we nearly got shot for the spy school final exam.”

“So, one year is the kevlar anniversary?” 

“For surviving spy school it is.” 

 

Mac’s phone buzzes just as the front door bursts open. 

“Mac! Did you-” Jack stops short seeing Mac holding the phone, mouthing an exaggerated ‘sorry’ as Mac answers.

“Hey blondie. How much do you know about geothermal energy technology?”

“I’ll be right there.” Mac grins as he slings his go-bag over his shoulder and steps out into the sunlight. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading, hope you enjoyed!


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